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LITERARY LIFE SERIES. 

Edited hy WILLI A BI SHEPARD. 

I.— A UTHORS AND A UTHORSHIP, 

itmo, cloth extra, gilt top, $1.25 

" A work ofsj>ecial interest to beginners in literattire, treating of the 
j>rofession of literature^ its struggles, ternptations , drawbacks, and ad- 
vantages; the relations of authors, editors, and publishers , etc. A cur- 
ious a7td interesting volume.^'' — N. Y. Mail and Express, 

" The perusal of this volujne affords rich literary recreation, and im- 
parts inuch valuable as well as curiozis information.'''' — Home Journal 
(Boston). 

" /zf is brimful of interesting inforjnation concerning authors and 
their work, and is one of the most readable vohtjnes of the year ^'' — Post 
(Hartford). 

II.— PEN PICTURES OF A UTHORS. 

i^mo, cloth extra, gilt top, $1.25 

Contains lively descriptions and recollections of men and wojnen 
noted in literature. Among these are Mr. Cttrtis' ''''Recollections of 
Hawthorne^^ Mrs. Kinney'' s ''''Day with the Brownings," Mr. Justin 
McCarthy's " Visit to Lowell^'' and Mr. John Esten Cooke's '' Hour 
•with Thackeray J' Carlyle, Emerson, George Eliot, Swinburne, Bulwer, 
Charles Reade, Longfellow, and many others are on the list of authors 
sketched or " interviewed." 

IN PREPARA TION. 

III.— PEN PICTURES OF EARLIER VICTORIAN 

A UTHORS. 



THE LITERARY LIFE 



Wi. 



Edited by /, 

IVILLIAM SHEPARD t. ■p- ^J-^-^^ . J 






^ 
^ 



Pen Pictures of Modern Atcthors 




NEW YORK 

G. P. PU TN AM'S SONS 

27 AND 29 WEST 23D STREET 
1882 



.W3 



Press of 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York 



PREFACE. 

THESE are not biographies that are col- 
lected here, but a series of sketches, 
anecdotes, and personal reminiscences relating 
to the more modern authors — that is, the 
authors who are now living, or who have died 
very recently and whose work belongs to the 
present half of the century. As the book is a 
com.pilation, the editor has occasionally been 
hampered by want of available material, and if 
the reader misses any face which he would like 
to have seen in a gallery of this sort, he will 
understand that it is because no satisfactory 
"pen picture" could be found. 

The thanks of the editor are due to the pub- 
lishers of the various magazines from which 
articles have been selected, and also to Messrs. 
Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., for permission to 



IV PREFACE. 

make extracts from two or three of their copy- 
righted works, especially from Hawthorne's 
Note-Books — which are not only interesting as 
revealing the inner workings of a rare and deli- 
cate genius, but contain a large amount of en- 
tertaining literary gossip in regard to many of 
his most famous contemporaries. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTBR PAGE 

I. THOMAS CARLYLE ...... I 

II. GEORGE ELIOT 4I 

III. JOHN RUSKIN 58 

IV. JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 68 

V. ALFRED TENNYSON 74 

VI. RALPH WALDO EMERSON .... 86 

VII. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 98 

VIII. LONGFELLOW AND WHITTIER . . . IIQ 

IX. LOWELL AND HOLMES 1 35 

X. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE . . . . I50 

XI. WALT WHITMAN . . • . . . . 161 

Xn. BAYARD TAYLOR 1 78 

XIII. SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE . . . 202 

XIV. THE BROWNINGS 2l6 

XV. CHARLES DICKENS . . ' . . . . 236 

XVL WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY . . 294 

XVIL SOME YOUNGER WRITERS 321 

V 



CHAPTER I. 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



Manners and appearance in his early days— Margaret Fuller's portrait 
— Anecdotes and reminiscences — The Carlyle household described 
by Henrj'' Larkin. 

None of his ''Autobiographic Sketches" 
De Ouincey tells a story of an evening 
party at Coleridge's where the conversation 
having turned upon the Mohammedan creed, 
theology, and morals, some young man, intro- 
duced by Edward Irving, thought fit to pro- 
nounce a splendid eulogium upon Mahomet 
and all his doctrines. This, as a pleasing ex- 
travagance, had amused all present. Some 
hours after, when the party came to separate, 
the philo-Mohammedan missed his hat, upon 
which, vv'hile a general search for it was going 
on. Lamb, turning to the stranger, said, *' Hat, 
sir ? Your hat ? Don't you think you came in a 
turban ? " The story is not a particularly 
good one, although De Quincey quotes it with 
evident triumph as a notable addition to the 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



stock of Eliana, but, as there need be no diffi- 
culty in identifying the " young man intro- 
duced by Irving," it is interesting as affording 
a glimpse of Carlyle in his early days. It 
shows, also, that in his comparatively obscure 
youth his sturdy self-assertion and overbearing 
eloquence v/ere not to be daunted, even on a 
first introduction, by the most brilliant intel- 
lectual society in England. It was probably a 
year or two later that Carlyle was met by 
George Gilfillan at a party given by Jeffrey. 
Gilfillan describes him as a man of about thirty 
years of age, wath dark locks approaching to 
a curl ; cheeks tinged v/ith a healthy red ; a 
brow broad, prominent, but rather low, not 
unlike that which painters give to Burns ; eyes 
which in a front view said nothing, but which, 
when seen from the side, were seen rolling in 
fire ; lips which appeared as if perpetually 
champing some invisible bit ; the whole aspect 
of the face being that of infinite restlessness, 
strongly restrained by self-control. His eyes 
and lips when he spoke seemed taking parts, 
and responding to each other in one wild tune. 
A jaw like that of a tiger formed the base of 
the head; and a form not tall, but commanding 
in its mediocrity, from an air of proud humii- 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



ity and half-stooping strength, finished off the 
whole. In a strange, Avild Annandale accent 
he began an address : *' The public," he said, 
*^ had become a gigantic jackass ; Literature, 
a glittering lie ; Science was groping aimlessly 
amidst the dry dead clatter of the machinery 
by which it means the universe ; Art wielding 
a feeble, watery pencil ; History stumbling 
over dry bones in a valley no longer of vision ; 
Philosophy lisping and babbling exploded ab- 
surdities, mixed with new nonsense about tlie 
Infinite, the Absolute, and the Eternal ; our Re- 
ligion a great truth groaning its last ; Truth, 
Justice, God, turned big, staring, empty words, 
like the address on a sign remaining after the 
house was abandoned, or like the envelope 
after the letter had been extracted, drifting 
down the wind. And what men we have to 
meet the crisis ! Sir Walter Scott, a toothless 
retailer of old wives' fables ; Brougham, an 
eternal grinder of commonplace and preten- 
tious noise, like a man playing on a hurdy- 
gurdy ; Coleridge, talking in a maudlin sleep 
an infinite deal of nothing; Wordsworth, stoop- 
ing to extract a spiritual catsup from mush- 
roomxS which were little better than toadstools ; 
John Wilson, taken to presiding at Noctcs, and 



THOMAS CARLYLE, 



painting haggises in floods ; the bishops and 
clergy of all denominations combined to keep 
men in a state of pupilage, that they may be 
kept in port wine and roast beef ; politicians 
full of cant, insincerity, and falsehood ; Peel, a 
plausible fox ; John Wilson Croker, an un- 
hanged hound ; Lord John Russell, a turn- 
spit of good pedigree ; Lord Melbourne, a 
monkey ; ^ these be thy gods, O Israel ! ' 
Others occupied in undertakings as absurd as 
to seek to suck the moon out of the sky ; 
this wind-bag yelping for liberty to the negro, 
and that other for the improvement of prisons ; 
— all sham and imposture together — a giant lie 
— v/hich may soon go dov/n in hell-fire." 

The best description of Carlyle, as he ap- 
peared in the fulness of his powers, is that 
given in the following passages from Margaret 
Fuller's letters to Emerson in 1846. They have 
often been quoted, but they are worth quoting 
again. 

MARGARET FULLER's DESCRIPTION. 

Of the people I saw in London, you will wish me 
to speak first of the Carlyles. Mr. C. came to see 
me at once, and appointed an evening to be passed 
at their house. That first time I was delighted 
with him. He was in a very sweet humor, full of 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 5 



wit and pathos, without being overbearing or op- 
pressive. I was quite carried away with the rich 
flow of his discourse ; the hearty, noble earnestness 
of his personal being brought back the charm which 
once was upon his writing, before I wearied of it. 
I admired his Scotch, his Vv^ay of singing his great 
full sentences, so that each one y>^as like the stanza 
of a narrative ballad. He let me talk now and 
then, enough to free my lungs and change my posi- 
tion, so that I did not get tired. That evening he 
talked of the present state of things in England, 
giving light, witty sketches of the men of the day, 
fanatics and others, and some sweet homely stories 
he told of things he had knov/n of the Scotch 
peasantry. Of you he spoke with hearty kindness ; 
and he told, with beautiful feeling, a story of 
some poor farmer or artisan in the country who on 
Sunday lays aside the cark and care of that dirty 
English v/orld and sits reading the essays and look- 
ing upon the sea. I left him that night intending 
to go out very often to their house. I assure you 
there never was any thing so witty as Carlyle's de- 
scription of . It was enough to kill one vv-ith 

laughing. I, on my side, contributed a story to his 
fund of anecdote on this subject, and it was fully 
appreciated. Carlyle is worth a thousand of you 
for that ; he is not ashamed to laugh when he is 
amused, but goes on in a cordial, human fashion. 
The second time Mr. C. had a dinner-party, at 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



which was a witty, French, flippant sort of man, 
author of a '' History of Philosophy " [George 
Henry Lewes], and now writing a ''Life of 
Goethe," a task for which he must be as unfit as 
irreligion and sparkling shallowness can make him. 
But he told stories admirably, and was allowed 
sometimes to interrupt Carlyle a little, of which 
one was glad, for that night he was in his more 
acrid mood and, though much more brilliant than 
on the former evening, grew wearisome to me, who 
disclaimed and rejected almost every thing he said. 
For a couple of hours he was talking about poetry, 
and the vv^hole harangue was one eloquent procla- 
mation of the defects in his own mind. Tennyson 
wrote in verse because the school-masters had 
taught him that it was great to do so, and had 
thus, unfortunately, been turned from the true path 
for a man. Burns had, in like manner, been 
turned from his vocation. Shakespeare had not 
had the good sense to see that it would have been 
better to write straight on in prose — and such non- 
sense, which, though amusing enough at first, he 
ran to death after a while. The most amusing part 
is always when he comes back to some refrain, as, 
in the "French Revolution," of the "sea-green." 
In this instance it was Petrarch and Laura, the las{, 
word pronounced with his ineffable sarcasm of 
drawl. Although he said this over fifty times, I 
could not help laughing Vvdien Laura would come, 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



Carlyle running his chin out when he spoke it, and 
his eyes glancing till they looked like the eyes and 
beak of a bird of prey. Poor Laura ! Luckily 
for her that her poet had already got her safely 
canonized beyond the reach of this Teufelsdrockh 
vulture. The worst of hearing Carlyle is that you 
cannot interrupt him. I understand the habit and 
power of haranguing have increased very much 
upon him, so that you are a perfect prisoner v/hen 
he has once got hold of you. To interrupt him is 
a physical impossibility. If you get a chance to 
remonstrate for a moment, he raises his voice and 
bears you down. True, he does you no injustice, 
and, with his admirable penetration, sees the dis- 
claimer in your mind, so that you are not morally 
delinquent ; but it is not pleasant to be unable to 
utter it. The latter part of the evening, however, 
he paid us for this by a series of sketches, in his 
finest style of railing and raillery, of modern 
French literature, not one of them perhaps per- 
fectly just, but all drawn with the finest, boldest 
strokes, and, from his point of view, masterly. All 
were depreciating except that of Beranger. Of him 
he spoke with perfect justice, because with hearty 
sympathy. I had, afterward, some talk with Mrs. 
C, whom hitherto I had only seen, for who can 
speak while her husband is there ? I like her very 
much — she is full of grace, sweetness, and talent. 
Her eyes are sad and charming. After this they 



8 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

went to stay at Lord Ashburton's, and I only saw 
them once more, when they came to pass an even- 
ing with us. Unluckily, Mazzini was with us, 
whose society, when he was there alone, I enjoyed 
more than any. He is a beauteous and pure music ; 
also, he is a dear friend of Mrs. C, but his being 
there gave the conversation a turn to " progress " 
and ideal subjects, and C. was fluent in invectives 
on all our " rose-water imbecilities." We all felt 
distant from him, and Mazzini, after some vain ef- 
forts to remonstrate, became very sad. Mrs. C. 
said to me, '' The: 3 are but opinions to Carlyle, 
but to Mazzini, who has given his all, and helped 
bring his friends to the scaffold, in pursuit of such 
subjects, it is a matter of life and death." All 
Carlyle's talk that evening was a defence of mere 
force — success the test of right — if people would 
not behave well, put collars round their necks — 
find a hero, and let them be his slaves, etc. It was 
very Titanic and anti-celestial. I wish the last 
evening had been more melodious. However, I 
bid Carlyle farev/ell with feelings of the warmest 
friendship and admiration. We cannot feel other- 
wise to a great and noble nature, v/hether it har- 
monize with our own or not. I never appreciated 
the work he has done for his age till I saw Eng- 
land. I could not. You must stand in the shadow 
of that mountain of shams to know how hard it is 
to cast light across it 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



Pans, December, 1846. — Accustomed to the in- 
iinite wit and exuberant richness of his writings, his 
talk is still an amazement and a splendor scarcely 
to be faced with steady eyes. He does not con- 
verse, only harangues. It is the usual misfortune 
of such marked men that they cannot allow other 
minds room to breathe and show themselves in 
their atmosphere, and thus miss the refreshment 
and instruction which the greatest never cease to 
need from the experience of the humblest. Carlyle 
allows no one a chance, but bears down all oppo- 
sition, not only by his ^yit and onset of words, re- 
sistless in their sharpness as so many bayonets, but 
by actual physical superiority, raising his voice and 
rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sounds. 
This is not in the least from unwillingness to allow 
freedom to others. On the contrary, no man would 
more enjoy a manly resistance to his thought. But 
it is the nature of a mind accustomed to follow out 
its own impulse as the hawk its prey, and v/hicli 
knows not how to stop in the chase. Carlyle, in- 
deed, is arrogant and overbearing, but in his arro- 
gance there is no littleness, no self-love. It is the 
heroic arrogance of some old Scandinavian con- 
queror ; it is his nature, and the untamable impulse 
that has given him power to crush the dragons. 
You do not love him, perhaps, nor revere ; and per- 
haps, also, he would only laugh at you if you did ; 
but you like him heartily, and like to see him, tlie 



lO THOMAS CARLYLE. 

powerful smith, the Siegfried, melting all the old 
iron in his furnace till it glows to a sunset red, and 
burns you if you senselessly go too near. He seems 
to me quite isolated, lonely as the desert ; yet never 
was a man more fitted to prize a man, could he find 
one to m.atch his mood. He finds them, but only 
in the past. He sings rather than talks. He pours 
upon you a kind of satirical, heroical, critical poem, 
with regular cadences, and generally catching up, 
near the beginning, some singular epithet, which 
serves as a refrain when his song is full. He some- 
times stops a minute to laugh at himself, then be- 
gins anew with fresh vigor ; for all the spirits he is 
driving before him seem to him as fata-morganas, 
ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn 
about ; but he laughs that they seem to others such 
dainty Ariels. 

^' Carlyle," says Mr. G. W. Smalley, of the 
Tribune, " never troubled himself about con- 
ventionalities. V/hat he felt, that he said, and 
as he felt it ; and it did not matter if he sat in 
his own room or in a public hall. At one of 
Dickens' readings he has been known to burst 
out in irrepressible, long-continued,, stentorian 
laughter, that amounted almost to a convul- 
sion ; swinging his hat in the air meanwhile." 
He expressed his opinions bluntly enough. 



THOMAS CARLYLE. II 



When Mr. William Black called upon hini he 
growled out, " Are you never going- to write 
any thing serious ? " " And now," he asked 
Mr. A'Beckett, the author of various '' comic " 
histories, '' when do you bring out your ' Comic 
Bible ' ? " He told a friend once that Miss 
Barrett (Mrs. Browning) had sent him two vol- 
umes of poems, and he had written her that 
" if she had any thing to say she had better 
put it into plain prose, so a body could under- 
stand it, and not trouble herself to make 
rhymes. But," he laughingly added, '' the 
woman felt so badly about it that I had to 
write again." A physician asked him why he 
did not take medical advice for his ailments. 
" Sir," he shouted, '^ I might as well pour my 
troubles into the long hairy ears of a jackass 
as consult a member of your profession." An- 
other story used to be told with much point by 
Dickens. The self-confident editor of a cer- 
tain review was present at a dinner-party, and 
had enunciated some weighty opinion on the 
subject under discussion, wrapping it up in a 
small parcel and laying it by on a shelf as if 
done with forever — and a dead silence ensued. 
This silence, to the astonishment of all, was 
broken by Carlyle looking across the table at 



12 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



the editor in a dreamy way, and saying as 
though to himself, but in perfectly audible 
tones, '' Eh, but you 're a puir cratur, a puir, 
wratched, meeserable cratur!" Then, with a 
sigh, he relapsed into silence. 

Of Carlyle's domestic life a very interesting 
glimpse has been afforded us by Mr. Henry 
Larkin, who was for many years an intimate 
friend of the household. This gentleman 
tells us that he had long worshipped Carlyle at 
a distance as the one to whom, " next to my 
Sovereign Lord and Master, Jesus Christ," he 
v/as most deeply indebted for light and guidance. 
But it was not until 1856 that he made his 
acquaintance. The story I give in his own 
words, though with some retrenchment and 
abridgm.ent, to fit It within the limits of this 
volume. 

HENRY LARKIN's REMINISCENCES. 

I was living in London, and I chanced to learn 
that Carlyle wanted help. I was told that he was 
hard at work on Frederick the Great ; and that he 
was also preparing to issue a collected edition of 
his works, for which he wanted good indexes. I 
saw at once that my opportunity had at length 
come ; and that there was now a possibility of doing 
something really useful while I lived. I was still 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 13 

unmarried, and my needs were as moderate as my 
means, and I had ray evenings as free as I chose to 
make them. So I wrote him a rather long letter, 
explaining what v/as necessary, and volunteering 
my services ; upon wliich I received the following 
friendly yet cautious invitation : 

Chelsea^ i:\ih December, 1856. 

Dear Sir: — Your Letter is very loyal and good ; your offer 
altogether kind and friendly. I am not v/ithout help, volun- 
teer and hired, in these troublesome Enterprises of mine ; nor 
is there an immediate necessity for more. But I make no 
doubt you, too, could do acceptable service, if you continued 
steadily inclined that way. 

Perhaps you may as well come and see me at any rate ; we 
shall then see better what is doable, what not. On Tuesday 
Evening we are at home, my Wife and I as usual ; Tea is at 
7^ o'clock ; if I hear nothing from you, let us expect you then 
for an hour and half. 

Believe me yours truly, 

T. Carlyle. 

I smiled as I read the limitation of " an hour and 
half," and wondered Vv'hat sort of long-winded 
visitor he expected to find me. Punctual to the 
time, I knocked at the door. I was conducted up- 
stairs into the drawing-room ; and Mrs. Carlyle, 
who was sitting at needlevv'ork by a small table, rose 
to receive me. She was very kind, but reserved, 
and I thought looked strangely sorrowful, as if some 
great trouble were weighing her down ; I thought she 



14 THOMAS CARLYLE, 

looked ill, and yet there v/as evidently something 
more depressing than mere bodily suffering. She 
said Mr. Carlyle would be dov/n presently, but 
had not .finished his afternoon sleep ; adding, in a 
slight tone of disparagement, " He always takes a 
long sleep before tea, and then complains that he 
can get no sleep at night." While I was wondering 
at this strange reception, Carlyle himself entered. 
He bowed somewhat ceremoniously, and we shook 
hands. He then bade me be seated, and tea was 
brought in. Of course we talked as we sipped our 
tea ; but what I chiefly remember is the strange 
feeling of reserve which seemed to have taken pos- 
session of all three of us. Gradually Carlyle began 
to thaw, probably as he gradually perceived that he 
had not caught such a gushing enthusiast as he may 
not unreasonably have expected. At nine o'clock 
I made a movem.ent, indicating that I was aware 
that the time allowed was up. But he again bade 
m.e be seated, kindly said there was no need to hurry 
away, that he always went out for a v/alk before bed, 
and that he would walk out with me. In this as- 
surance Mrs. Carlyle kindly joined, and I again sat 
dov/n, feeling considerably more at ease than be- 
fore. After this the conversation became more 
specific, and almost genial, although I recollect very 
little which Vv^ould be worth repeating. Mrs. Car- 
lyle said little, merely putting in an occasional re- 
mark. At length Carlyle abruptly introduced the 



TIJOMAS CARLYLE. 15 

business which had brought me there, and which I 
had been waiting for him to refer to. Perhaps my 
face brightened at this, but certainly his own reserve 
there and then fell from him, and for the first time 
I felt that I saw Carlyle himself. 

He told me the Lives of Sterling and Schiller 
were the first things requiring attention ; and that 
his wish was to have a summary of each chapter 
and an index of both Lives, to be placed at the end 
of the book. That, if I found myself fit for the 
work, and the v/ork fit for me, he could at least 
promise me enough of it. But one absolute condi- 
tion was, that he himself w^as not to be worried 
about it, his thoughts being entirely absorbed in 
other vrork. In short, that superfluous talk (includ- 
ing wTiting) was, on all occasions, the one thing to 
be avoided. He handed me the books, and, at 
eleven o'clock instead of nine, we went out to- 
gether. He walked w'ith me a mile or more on my 
road, talking in a kind, fatherly way, v/hich sent me 
home gratefully triumphant. Mrs. Carlyle Avas 
again very kind at parting ; but I saw, w-ith a feel- 
ing of perplexed disappointment, the same weary 
look, almost of indifference, which I had noticed 
when I entered. I little knew then the wearing 
misery of her life, and little thought how anxiously 
she was foreboding that all this '' romantic devo- 
tion," as she afterward called it, on my part, and 
Carlyle 's ready acceptance of it, must inevitably 



1 6 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

end in trouble to us both. This was the time which 
Carlyle, in his Reminiscences, so sadly speaks of, 
as the " nadir of her sufferings." I may as well say 
at once that her anxious forebodings were never 
quite fulfilled. Troubles enough there undoubtedly 
were, and, as will be seen, disappointments, too, on 
both sides. But I think I may confidently say that 
our relation was one of unbroken mutual esteem 
from first to last. 

I set to work upon the Sterling, and, when I had 
finished it, sent it with a short note, thinking it best 
not to trouble Cariyie by calling until he had looked 
at it and wished to see me, especially as I still had 
the Schiller to go on w^ith it. While preparing the 
index, etc., I noted two or three little points 
which seemed dubious, and called attention to them 
by slips of paper between the leaves, on which I 
wrote only what was necessary, thinking it would 
thus be very little trouble for him to glance at the 
page, and then do any thing or nothing as he saw fit. 
There was nothing of any great importance. He 
had spoken of Sterling in his first few years as be- 
ing still in "long clothes ;" and I pointed out that 
this was a form of expression usually applied by 
mothers to the bird-of-paradise apparel in which 
they adorn their infants before there is any possi- 
bility of the little feet alighting on the ground, and 
was hardly applicable to a boy trotting by his 
father's side. I also called attention to an extract 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 1 7 

which had evidently been tucked in after the rest 
was written, and which wanted some slight gram- 
matical dovetailing. Besides this, there were two or 
three instances of what seemed to be imperfect 
punctuation. 

I went next week as desired ; and was much de- 
lighted at the cordiality with which both Carlyle 
and Mrs. Carlyle received me. I was especially 
surprised and delighted at the change in Mrs. 
Carlyle. She had been very kind before, but with 
a patiently hopeless look, like a mourner standing 
by an unclosed grave. But all this had now passed 
away. All the blinds were drawn up in her house 
of mourning ; and her face was illuminated with 
the brightest of welcomes. I never knew any one 
who could deal out little flatteries so pleasantly and 
judiciously. I have seen it administered by the 
spoonful, like brimstone and treacle, and even laid 
on copiously, as if with a plasterer's trowel. But 
she knew better. She knew the sensitive points ex- 
actly, and, if she chose, could touch them so deli- 
cately that it almost seemed like a happy inad- 
vertence ; and she could also prick them with the 
deftest of needles, if she saw fit. She expressed a 
good deal of bantering astonishment at what she 
called "ray accurate knowledge of baby-linen," 
and was altogether cheerful and congratulatory. 

After this my visits became less formal, and were 
entirely pleasant and encouraging. Mrs. Carlyle 



1 8 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

and I seemed to get on very happily together. She 
said she didn't see why Carlyle (she always called 
him " Carlyle " when in her best moods) should have 
me all to himself ; and enlisted my services in many 
little practical difficulties of her own. She once, 
in those early days, told me, in her pleasant half- 
flattering, half-bantering way, that I was '^ the only 
one she had ever heard Carlyle speak of v/ithout 
what Sir Robert Peel would call * mitigating cir- 
cumstances ' ! " After some little time, I ventured 
to send him a short essay of mine, " The Poetry of 
Life," which had appeared in Chambers' s Journal 
previous to my Carlylean era, in which I had en- 
deavored to express my notion of the Christian 
ideal. It was not that I attached any special value 
to the essay ; but I thought, flimsy as it might 
seem to him, it v^^ould at least show him my own 
ethical stand-point, and might call forth some ob- 
servations from him which would be of value to 
me, and might even lead to a closer communion of 
thought between us. The next time I went, after 
we had transacted our business and I v/as about to 
leave (for it was only a passing call, in the early 
part of the day), he returned me my little paper, 
with a serious, almost grieved look, but v/ithout a 
word of comment. Mrs. Carlyle was equally 
silent ; and I had to go m.y way, pondering what 
such omens might portend. I see now clearly 
enough that, even in those early days, they must 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 1 9 



already have looked on me as a kind of feeble 
Irving ; with much of his spirit of willing helpful- 
ness, but utterly without his great gifts, for which 
perhaps chiefly they had both admired hira. I 
have no doubt they were sincerely grieved at the 
thought, that here was another earnest life brought 
close to them, equally bound to be wrecked in the 
vain struggle after the impossible and unattainable. 
In our subsequent intercourse Mrs. Carlyle tried, 
many times and in many ways, to impress on me a 
wholesome sense of all such disastrous futilities. 
Carlyle seemed as yet to content himself with ab- 
solute silence on such impracticable topics ; prob- 
ably waiting for some freer opportunity, and per- 
haps hoping that a course of steady hard work 
might of itself grind much of it out of me. But 
I shall have to recur to this subject hereafter. Of 
course all this was not conducive to any very free 
sympathy of thought or feeling. Indeed, I soon 
found, even in our freest moments, that there was 
a distinct distance between us which neither could 
genially cross. 

While on the subject of indexes and summaries, 
I may perhaps be pardoned for saying that they 
cost me far more labor than Carlyle had any idea 
of. But I got my own advantage out of the work, 
and never left any passage until I was satisfied 
that I had got the full meaning of it. 

At the time of which I am now writing, while I 



20 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



was thus struggling with work which I wholly liked 
and appreciated, the ill-luck of weary and utterly 
incompatible labor, which has dogged my footsteps 
through life, v/as already barking at the door. One 
day I found Carlyle in great tribulation of spirit 
about maps and battle-plans, which had become 
necessary to illustrate the Frederick, then seething 
and sputtering on the anvil at the fiercest white 
heat; and which maps and plans he had found 
himself quite unable to arrange. He had tried his 
hand at them, and had at last thrown them from 
him in utter loathing and despair ; and now wist- 
fully appealed to me, to say ''whether amongst my 
many facilities of help, even map-making might not 
possibly be one." I never listened to any appeal 
with feelings of more real dismay than I listened 
then. I knew well that, do what I would, the whole 
thing would be as unconquerably intolerable to me 
as it had already proved to himself. I had had long 
and very bitter experience, not of map-making and 
battle-plans, but of very kindred employment ; and 
I knew with inward shuddering what it must mean 
for me. But what was I to do .? Was I to refuse 
him, and throw him back upon his own despair, 
when he was so confidently and really so patheti- 
cally looking to me for deliverance? "No," I 
thought ; " I have put my hand to the work ; and I 
will push through with it, come what may !" 

I never saw Carlyle look so really grateful as when, 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 21 



with many misgivings, I promised to try what I 
could do. But from that time my labors with him 
were almost as weary a struggle as his own. My 
only satisfaction in now looking back upon them is 
that, notwithstanding all my repugnances, I did sue 
ceed ; and gave him almost perfect satisfaction i; . 
every instance. So irksome to me was the misei / 
they inflicted, that in after-years I could never he^r 
him refer to them (as he often gratefully did, as tije 
one thing in which I had really helped him) with- 
out a twinge of pain ; partly, I confess, of disap- 
pointment that it should be what I cared for least 
that he valued and remembered best. 

During all this time, as may be supposed, I v/:,3 a 
frequent visitor at Cheyne Row ; and afterward, 
much more so. I generally looked in in the forenoon, 
that time being usually most convenient to me. 
My practice was to go straight up to Carlyle in his 
sky-lighted study, and arrange whatever matter I 
had to consult him about ; and then, as I passed 
down, have half an hour's chat with Mrs. Carlyle in 
the drawing-room. They were generally very pleas- 
ant half-hours. 

It must have been about this time, too, that I 
gradually became alive to the intense dreariness of 
her own life. She had such a perfect mastery of 
herself, and such a stoical resolution to shut in her 
own misery from the eyes of the world, that I sup- 
pose not many even of her intimate friends ever 



22 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

knew how much she was actually suffering. It was 
not merely the feeling of utter loneliness, arising 
from Carlyle's moody absorption in his own work. 
All this, I believe, she could have borne without 
flinching. Indeed, she had such an unshaken faith 
in his genius, and such a queenly appreciation of 
her own prerogatives as his vvife, that I am con- 
vinced she would not, even at the worst, have ex- 
changed her lowly position for the highest in the 
land. I cannot for a moment suppose that their 
two lives were really blended into one. How, on 
such terms, could they be ? But she was by no 
means deficient in that last infirmity of female 
hearts, a jealous sense of "property" in her hus- 
band, of which all poachers would do well to be- 
ware. She showed also a true feminine intolerance 
for any thing in her ov/n sex which she did not her- 
self understand ; especially if it aimed at an ideal 
with which she had no sympathy : as was indeed 
almost unpardonably her case with regard to li- 
ving's true-hearted and devoted wife ; as Carlyle 
himself, unconsciously, yet too plainly, and even 
cruelly, testifies. Yet, I venture to believe, she 
v/ould have been as much shocked as anyone at his 
incredibly bitter fanatical " anti-fanatic " version of 
it. " Oh, those ' unspeakable ' men," I can fancy 
her exclaiming, almost with horror, " how stupidly 
blundering they are, taking every silly thing so 
dreadfully in earnest !" There had, too, been some 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 23 

superficial love-passages between Irving and herself 
in their young days ; and I can quite believe this 
also may have given piquancy to her feeling of an- 
tagonism. No one who knew her can doubt that 
she would fully appreciate the triumph of having 
once had the choice between two such men ; and, 
v.'ith all her almost invincible heroism, she evidently 
had not quite magnanimity enough to generously 
forget it, I always think that any woman who can 
amuse herself and friends by talking of such tempt- 
ing little victories could not have been altogether 
incapable of some little tantalizing complicity in 
bringing them about ! At the time I knew her, she 
possessed plenty of resources of her own, and 
friends and acquaintances in more than abundance; 
and she well knew how to hold her own in all wordy 
warfare, and give tit for tat all round with sparkling 
vivacity. She had also a mischievous delight in 
treading on the delicate toes of the conventional 
proprieties ; and I have heard her say the most 
audacious things with a look of demure uncon- 
sciousness, which would have broken out into the 
pleasantest, or sharpest, mocking astonishment, if 
you were simple enough to profess being shocked. 
She sometimes tried those shafts at me, to see 
whether I would wince ; especially with reference 
to what she was pleased to call my " youthful en- 
thusiasms," and even more serious matters. But 
when I saw her deftly aim them, I generally allowed 



24 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

them to glance past me, being no match for her 
with that kind of swift, sharp-pointed artillery. 
Once she told me " it was mostly mad people who 
came running after Carlyle," leaving me to make 
my own application. It must have been on one of 
these occasions that she mentioned, as a kind of 
general remark, " what a comfort it was sometimes 
to have stupid people about you, it saved so much 
trouble !" All this sort of thing, I should say, she 
fully enjoyed, while it was alive and on the wing ; 
but, when she was again solitary, the reaction was 
proportionate. It was not, as I said, merely Car- 
l3^1e's absorption in his work which weighed on her 
spirit ; she knew this was inevitable, and Vv'ould 
have cheerfully faced it, if only for the vantage- 
ground it gave her with the world. The m.isery 
was to be shut up alone with him, when he himself 
was struggling under his burdens in utter wretched- 
ness and gloominess of heart. When his dark labor- 
pains were strong upon him, I suppose he was the 
most absolutely wretched man I ever saw. Even 
to stand firmly on one's ov/n feet in the presence of 
such misery and consequent irritability, was well- 
nigh impossible. But what she felt most keenly of 
all was, that he never seemed to realize that misery 
is the most contagious of all diseases. He sav/ her 
always invincibly devoted to him ; and he thought 
her lot peaceful and happy in comparison with his 
own. He never saw the misery his own misery was 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 25 



inflicting upon her and gradually sapping the very 
life out of her. I have heard her, many times, 
speak of their life at Craigenputtoch with absolute 
shuddering ; and I do not wonder when they left at 
her gayly proposing to "burn our ships" and so 
prevent the possibility of return ! I once took an 
opportunity of referring to what Sterling had said 
about her skill in v.-riting, and ventured to wonder 
that she did not still try to find a little amusement 
in that way. But she shut me up very sharply by 
saying, "Oh, Mr. Larkin, one writer is quite 
enough in a house." And yet, I ought to say, I 
never once heard an angry word pass between them- 
selves. If Carlyle had not himself written so 
frankly of these things, I should never have dared 
to write v/hat I am nov\^ writing. I have hardly 
spoken of them to any one, for I felt them to be 
troubles which God only could be trusted with ; but 
they sank very deeply and sorrowfully into my own 
heart. She was anxious, too, about me, and often 
warned me that I was looking for a recognition 
which I should never gain. By this time, notwith- 
standing Carlyle's very kind and hearty appreciation 
of my poor services, I had begun to see rather 
deeply into the inevitable truth of this gentlest 
friendly foreboding. Even Carlyle's praise, always 
frankly conscientious, was far too serious and ad- 
monitory ever to be lightly accepted like Mrs, Car- 
lyle's playful flatteries. They always seemed to 



26 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

tacitly imply, "This is my clear and emphatic ap^ 
proval, so far. Take heed that you continue to de- 
serve it." In fact, I not unfrequently recalled his 
own grim words : " Hardly for the flower of men 
will love alone do ; and for the scoundrelism of men 
it has not even a chance to do." He evidently 
thought it was something to stand clear of that 
latter category. 

I never knew a man more free from all personal 
vulgarities of any kind, or one whose presence car- 
ried with it such clear unassuming dignity of m.an- 
hood ; which I can only describe as a certain royal 
gra,ciousness of manner, as different from a spirit of 
condescension as wisdom is different from personal 
pretentiousness. He had, too, on all occasions, such 
a graphic discernment of all the facts he knew, and 
such a worid-v/ide wealth of knowledge to liberally 
dispense, that few " kingdom.s " have been more 
grandly real or more honestly won. His very fail- 
ings were of a kingly order, and almost compelled 
respect by their absolute and evident sincerity. 
Of his mocking Berserker hilarity, and overwhelm- 
ing power of speech when roused by worthy oppo- 
sition, we have often been told ; but, for my own 
part, I greatly preferred his half-silences, when one 
seemed to comm^une with his heart rather than with 
his head. At such times of quiet converse I have 
sometimes known him as simple, as gentle, and as 
open to conviction as any child. It is the recol- 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 2 7 

lection of such moments that keeps his memory so 
reverently dear to many friends, often constrained 
to differ from him, and even to put a higher interpre- 
tation than his own on the very truths he had taught 
them. Both Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle had singu- 
larly expressive voices, and yet singularly different 
from each other, like the many tones of a powerful 
organ and the perfect modulations of a mellow 
flute. They both spoke heartily, with their genuine 
native accents, but with the easy grace of cultivated 
sincerity, and with no other rusticity of manner 
than daring to be true to the soil from which they 
sprang. They simply brought with them, into the 
midst of the French-polished upholstery of London 
conventional life, a vocal memory of the fresli 
breezes and living echoes of their own mountain 
streams, pine-trees, and thousand-tinted heather. 
But I should say that, even in his most genial 
moods, there was never any thing we could call 
really "playful" in Carlyle's thoughts or way cf 
looking at things, as there so often was in his wife's. 
I can hardly imagine that even in childhood he 
ever practically knew the meaning of happy " play " 
— the pretty innocent skipping of kids and lambs, 
the simple bubbling-over of the cup of joy ! I can 
only picture him as " weary and heavy laden " from 
his birth. Laughter he had of many kinds ; scorn- 
ful, genial, triumphant ; and even a strangely sym- 
pathetic laugh of reproving pity ; but I should say, 



28 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

never the clear ring of overflowing heartfelt joy. 
Even his humor, richly abundant as it was, was 
never playful, like Shakespeare's, or like Thack- 
eray's at his best ; but always either grim, or sadly 
pitiful, or else merely grotesquely admonitory. No 
sunny glances of childlike mirth and innocence ever 
sported within the sanctuary of his grimly earnest 
soul ; more like a warning iridescence playing 
around purgatorial fires, half revealing and half 
concealing the incommunicable reality, was the 
grimly pathetic banter in which he so frequently 
shrouded the message his soul felt bound to de- 
liver. " My friends, I do not laugh," he says once ; 
"truly I am more inclined to weep." 

With all this grim earnestness I do not suppose 
Mrs. Carlyle ever had any deep or real sympathy ; 
and I sometimes think she may once have greatly 
over-estimated her own ability to rally him out of 
it. Perhaps she never altogether gave up the at- 
tempt. She was always very ready with playful sur- 
prises whenever a fair occasion served. One morn- 
ing, after I had finished my business upstairs, I 
looked in at the drawing-room as usual, when she 
asked me whether Carlyle had mentioned "that 
little paper he was to speak to me about." I said, 
" No ; but that I supposed he had forgotten it 
and that I would go back to inquire." I went back : 
but Carlyle knew no more about it than I did. At 
last he got up from his table, v/here he was busily 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 29 



writing, and came down to ask her what it was. I 
followed him. She let us get close up to her table 
where she also was writing ; and then held up be- 
fore us a slip of paper upon which, while I was 
gone, she had written— '' The ist of April ! " Car- 
lyle and I looked at each other, laughing heartily at 
our mutual bewilderment ; and he then strode off, 
and returned upstairs to his study. Whereupon she 
v>'as highly triumphant at having, as she said, 
" brought down two such philosophers with one 
shot ! " 

Once I recollect a bantering allusion to " Car- 
lyleT friends, the immortal gods ! " but I forget 
what the occasion was. She never hesitated about 
quizzing him, just as she did every one else ; and I 
noticed that he always seemed to rather like it. 
Once he was giving me some little bit of copying or 
map- making to do, and was elaborately impressing 
on me the importance of dispatch, but at the same 
time, of there being no actual hurry about it ; which 
was a way he had, like touching up with the whip and 
holding in with the bridle at the same moment. I 
intimated my perfect understanding of his wishes ; 
and quoted Goethe's well-known words, which had 
once made a deep impression on me, '* like a star, 
unhasting and unresting." " Ah," interposed Mrs. 
Carlyle, " Carlyle is always hasting, and never rest- 
ing ; " which, indeed, was the saddest fact of both 
their lives. She was once very severe upon what 



30 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

she called Goethe's "hard heart." "No one," she 
said, " but a hard-hearted man, could have treated 
a pathetic character like poor little Mignon as he 
had treated her. If, for the sake of his story, he 
was bound to kill her, at least he was not bound 
to make stuffy speeches about it, and — embalm 
her ! " Meanwhile Carlyle looked on benignly, as if 
he were listening to some pretty innocent prattle, 
bat said nothing. I recollect the interest excited at 
the publication of "Adam Bede," and how much 
Mrs. Carlyle was amused with the character of Mrs. 
Poyser. She told me Carlyle had read two or three 
chapters, and then threw the book down ; refusing, 
for some reason of his own, to look at it asrain. 

I find my presentation copy of the first two vol- 
umes of " Frederick " inscribed " with many thanks 
and regards, 30th September, 1858." When he 
handed me the volumes, Carlyle solemnly and im- 
pressively thanked me for the great and unexpected 
help I had given him in his heavy labor, without 
which he shuddered to think where he might then 
have been. I cannot recall all that he said ; but 
the words — " with a luminous silence, and a steady 
fidelity of effort, beyond all his experience or imagi- 
nation ; if it would be any satisfaction to me to 
know it," — have remained with me as if spoken 
but yesterday. He then kindly insisted on my ac- 
ceptance of a check (^-/^loo), and accompanied it 
with many earnest wishes for my future welfare. 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



In addition to map-making, my labors had grad- 
ually come to include the deciphering and copy- 
ing-cut of the more intricate and least intelligible 
bits of Carlyle's sometimes singularly intricate 
manuscript. I recollect, on one occasion, he had 
been worrying himself, almost beyond endurance, 
over some unusually refractory specimen which had 
stubbornly resisted every attempt to force it into 
shape, when to his relief I entered his study. He 
at once handed me the page of hieroglyphics to take 
away and make a fair copy of ; saying, with a kind 
of self-mocking, self-pitying laugh, "/ cannot 
make out the sense of it, but I have no doubt you 
will be able !" On another occasion, on handing 
me a similar piece, he said despairingly, it was 
**' almost like asking for the interpretation, without 
even giving me the dream !" I was always thor- 
oughly interested in tliis kind of work, which had 
for me nothing: of the intense dreariness of battle- 
plans and map-making. It was especially interest- 
ing to me to find how I could sometimes, as it were, 
meet his thought half-way, and see what he was 
trying to express, even before I had got all the 
words together. But I was not very ready at it 
either ; I seldom could do this sort of thing at a 
glance. I generally had to puzzle and brood over 
it, until the idea seemed almost to come of its own 
accord. As I said, Carlyle never realized how 
much trouble these things sometimes cost me, nor 



%2 THOMAS CARLYLE. 



did I care to speak much of it. In fact, as a rule, 
it was of no use talking to him about trouble ; it 
only made him disinclined to trouble you. 

By this time I had removed to Brompton, chiefly 
for the purpose of being nearer to Cheyne Row. Of 
course I was now frequently there, generally look- 
ing in some three or four times a week. Occasion- 
ally I spent the evening there, in which case I 
always joined Carlyle in his eleven-o'clock walk. 
Those quiet walks I felt to be a great privilege, and 
generally found them highly profitable ; but some- 
times not so profitable. I had all along been tacitly 
and uncomforta,bly conscious that both he and Mrs. 
Carlyle were greatly concerned about me, lest I 
should persist in w^asting my life in mere spiritual 
abnegations. On one occasion, I suppose, he felt 
constrained to clear his ov/n conscience toward me, 
as he has since told us he once did toward Irving. 
I well recollect his speaking to me of Irving in very 
sorrowful and affectionate terms ; of his great gifts ; 
his truthful, affectionate, and courageous heart ; 
and how it was all wasted and wrecked on the mad- 
dest of futilities, ending only in a heart-broken 
half-consciousness that his life had been a disas- 
trous mistake. He also told me that he liad been 
credibly informed that, toward the end of it all, he 
had been heard to lament how different it might all 
have been if he had kept nearer to himself ; or at 
least (as he conscientiously explained) that was the 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 33 

conclusion he had himself drawn from what he had 
been told. It was in no spirit of boasting, or of 
proud self-sufficiency, that this was spoken ; but in 
the deepest sorrow and pity ; and, at the time, I 
had no doubt whatever of its being the simple fact, 
although I am now convinced that it was almost an 
entire misunderstanding on his part. Self-reproach 
Irving may have felt in his own sensitive con- 
science, that he had not been more faithful in his 
testimony to his early friend ; but assuredly few 
*' last days " were more tragically ///^faltering than 
his. I knew, from the time Carlyle began to speak, 
** for quickly comes such knowledge," that he was 
trying to teach me by a parable ; and I would gladly 
have set his mind at rest about me. But I could 
not feel that his impressive parable had any real 
bearing on my case. I felt we were both reaching 
out to each other in the dark ; ineffectually, and to 
our mutual disapointment. 

On another occasion he referred in terms of utter 
condemnation to the subject of so-called ''spiritual- 
ism "; evidently wishful to know how I regarded it. 
I said the basest thing about it was its miserable 
attempt to turn the awful stillness of Eternity into 
a penny peep-show. He entirely agreed with me ; 
and yet I could see that my rejoinder was not what 
he wanted. He wanted me to declare my total dis- 
belief in the whole thing. But this, with the Bible 
before me, I was not prepared to do. We had many 



34 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

little tentative encounters of this kind, but never 
got to any actual disputation. Once he spoke in 
strong disparagement of the pitiful inconsistency of 
some one, I forget now who it was, professing to 
believe in his teaching, and also in the nonsense 
taught in the name of religion. But this again was 
far too widely aimed to touch me, and I let it pass. 
Why should I feel called upon to defend generally 
the "nonsense" of so-called religion, when my life 
had been a struggle to gain, if possible, its practical 
and living wisdom ? I never could talk with him 
freely and unreservedly on such subjects. I always 
had an uncomfortable perception that there was a 
whole world of thought, to me of more than vital 
moment, which to him v/as as nothing. How then 
could we wisely talk about it ? I also felt that he 
himself had a kind of wounded consciousness of 
something of the kind ; and that he sometimes even 
resented it as " the unkindest cut of all." Of 
course all this arose as much from my own faultiness 
as from his. I often longed earnestly enough to 
talk frankly with him ; but my own ideas were still 
far from being clearly defined. Many thoughts and 
purposes were rising and jostling against each other 
in my mind, which refused to take shape ; and Car- 
lyle was not a man to go to with a bewildered and 
bewildering difficulty, especially a difficulty beyond 
his own power to solve. This was precisely my 
case ; and it was the one sore point between us at 



I 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 35 

which we continually touched. I see now that he 
must have felt more deeply hurt at this palpable 
want of faith in him, than at the time, in my seem- 
ing insignificance, I could at all have imagined. 
" Here, at last," he must at such times have thought, 
" a disciple has come to me who evidently under- 
stands my God-given message ; and yet even he 
has only a half-hearted belief in me ! " The fact is, 
it was enough for me then, as in so many other 
cases of perplexity and doubt, to fall back on his 
ov/n wise words: "'Do, with all thy might, what 
thy hand findeth to do '; speak of the same only 
to the infinitesimal few, — nay, oftenest to nobody, 
not even to thyself ! " These words, when I first 
read them, sank very deep into my heart. And yet, 
I must confess, I also, for my own part, could not 
help feeling somewhat hurt and disappointed. 
" Here was I, striving to live faithfully in my own poor 
way according to his own wise teaching ; and, be- 
cause I was not, what he had so strenuously warned 
me against, a glib talker or mere intellectual corus- 
cation of any kind, but had ray own silent dis- 
tresses and perplexities to struggle with, he was dis- 
satisfied with me ! " 

Generally speaking, this sore feeling was alto- 
gether tacit and unacknowledged between us ; and 
I even doubt whether he knew that I was distinctly 
conscious of it. It was not a thing we could well 
have spoken of : we could only have hoped to mu- 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



tually outlive it. But on two occasions, and only 
two, perhaps while suffering from more than ordi- 
nary constitutional irritability, he quite lost all wise 
control of himself, and showed me, in a momen- 
tary flash of anger, what I would gladly never have 
looked upon, but which was far too significant to 
be honestly omitted. One morning, when I entered 
his study, I found him as usual sitting at his table, 
but evidently in a condition of great suppressed ir- 
ritability, with Mill's treatise " On Liberty " lying 
before him ; which some one, perhaps Mill himself, 
had sent him. I believe the book had recently been 
published, but I cannot say positively. Certainly I 
had until then never seen it, or heard of it. After 
I had discharged my trifling business, he rose an- 
grily from the table with the book in his hand, and 
gave vent to such a torrent of anathema (glancing 
at Christianity itself, as if Christianity had been the 
inspiration of it) as filled me with pain and amaze- 
ment. He addressed himself directly to me, almost 
as if / had written the book, or had sent it to him, 
or was in some way mixed up with it in his mind. 
I felt terribly hurt, but what could I say in protest 
against such a wide-rushing torrent of invective ? I 
had never read the book, and did not know how far 
I might agree with it, or even whether I might not 
execrate it in my own heart as utterly as he did. 
Neither did he expressly charge me with any com- 
plicity with its ideas. But he did, in his haste, say 



THOMAS CARLYLE. ^J 

things which he ought not to have said, and which, 
I am sure, we both, afterward, painfully wished had 
never been spoken. In fact, I could see that he 
was even tragically sorry, almost as soon as his 
constitutional irritability had thus found unlicensed 
vent. I do not think that I made him any direct 
response. We parted soon after in perfect friendli- 
ness ; but, too palpably, another shadow had fallen 
between us. 

The second occasion to which I have referred 
occurred long afterward, and was altogether trivial 
in comparison ; a mere straw marking the hidden 
disturbance of the stream upon which it floated. 
This time it was in the drawing-room, and Mrs. 
Carlyle was present. He was asking me to do some 
trilling mechanical service for him, similar to what 
I had done once before, and, lest I should have for- 
gotten, proceeded to give me altogether wrong in- 
structions. Of course I corrected his mistake, and 
explained to him how the thing had really been 
done ; but I could see that he was not altogether 
himself, and I know I spoke as tenderly as I could. 
Perhaps even this touched him painfully and gave 
offence ; as if I were assuming to have more self- 
control than he had. Anyhow, he only grev/ more 
and more irritable, as I tried to convince him that 
it could not possibly be done in the way he said. 
He stormily insisted that he was right, and that he 
surely ought to know. We were both standing look- 



38 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

ing at each other, I sorrowfully knowing that 
mechanism would not alter its conditions to please 
either of us ; and he, in his loose-fitting coat, and 
with his long sceptre-like pipe admonitorily sweep- 
ing the air, angrily and utterly refusing to be con- 
vinced. He finished by saying, in strangely meas- 
ured, sarcastic cadences, " It may — be per- 
fectly — credible — to you — that I am entirely— de- 
void of sense," and then impatiently left the 
room. Mrs. Carlyle and I looked at each other in 
despair. Meanwhile he had betaken himself to the 
garden, to try to smoke off his irritation. I think I 
have seldom been more reverently affected, and 
even humbled, than when, in about five or ten min- 
utes, he again entered the room, frankly admitting 
his error, and expressing his great regret that he 
should have allowed himself to be so carried awav. 
I have often thought of this sterling honesty and 
touching self-correction in so great a man, and 
have lately remembered it in his behalf, while read- 
ing the similarly hasty outpourings of his feverishly 
troubled heart, which have been so unreservedly 
published and so angrily criticised — 

No reckoning made, but set to his account 
With all their imperfections on his head. 

In 1862 I married and, mainly at Mrs. Carlyle's 
instigation, took the house. No. 6, next door to him, 
which was then falling vacant. We all thought this 



THOMAS CARLVLE. 39 

would prove a very convenient and pleasant ar- 
rangement ; but I soon found that it was a mistake, 
so far as I was concerned. Carlyle had become so 
accustomed to apply to me in every little difficulty, 
that, now that it could be done so conveniently, it 
grew to be a very serious tax upon my time, with- 
out giving me the satisfaction of feeling that it was 
at all of corresponding advantage to him. Mrs. 
Carlyle continued as sorrowfully and as kindly af- 
fectionate as ever : but I felt more and more dis- 
tinctly that I should never get nearer to himself by 
more frequent intercourse. On the contrary, his 
spirit of irritability and impatience became more 
frequent, and I have no doubt more unconscious on 
his part, the more outwardly familiar we became ; 
and I often had painful misgivings as to how far I 
was justified in thus giving way to him. But there 
was really no help for it, except by weakly leaving 
him in the lurch and deserting him in the midst of 
his difficulties. But the thought of Mrs. Carlyle's 
deplorable position in such a case would of itself 
have been enough to have prevented such a thing, 
even if my own spirit had broken down. From 
first to last my position with Carlyle was that of a 
friendly volunteer, anxious to render him all the 
help in my power ; and I much doubt whether so 
long and so intimate a connection would have been 
possible on any other terms. But it must not be 
supposed that he allowed me to render all these 



40 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

services altogether for nothing. I have already 
mentioned the first check, and the very friendly 
way in which he insisted on my accepting it. After 
this there were several presents of ^^50, handed or 
posted to me, as occasion served, in a spirit of no 
less friendliness. 

After the completion of the general index — hav- 
ing faithfully struggled with him, almost v/ith my 
life in my hands, through what Mrs. Carlyle well 
called " the Valley of the Shadow of Frederick " — 
I considered my long apprenticeship to Carlyle 
fairly and honorably ended. There were many lit- 
tle friendly services which I still continued to ren- 
der. Perhaps for some time I was there almost as 
frequently as before ; and certainly we never after- 
ward met in any other spirit than that of the friend- 
liest cordiality But in 1866 Mrs. Carlyle died ; 
and Carlyle's life seemed to have suddenly become 
altogether downcast, haggard, and motiveless. I 
little knew then the helpless, hopeless, " late re- 
morse of love," which was almost breaking his 
heart ; and still less could I have realized that he 
and his really loved wife had been living side by 
side for so many years, and he as unconscious as 
the inaccessible rocks of the misery that very un- 
consciousness was daily and hourly inflicting. 



CHAPTER II. 
GEORGE ELIOT (Mrs. Mary Anne Evans Lewes). 

Kate Field's sketch — Her timidity and reserve — Testimony of a per- 
sonal friend — Various reminiscences. 

T was Miss Kate Field, we believe, who 
gave to the world the first ** Pen-picture " 
of that wonderful woman who called herself 
" George Eliot." Writing from Florence in 
1864, she told the readers of the Atlantic 
Monthly that she had just met Mrs. Lewes at 
the Villino Trollope, and described her as fol- 
lows. 

A NEWSPAPER SKETCH. 

In heaviness of jav/ and height of cheek-bone 
she greatly resembles a German, nor are her feat- 
ures unlike those of Wordsworth, judging from his 
pictures. The expression of her face is gentle and 
amiable, while her manner is particularly timid and 
retiring. In conversation Mrs. Lewes is most en- 
tertaining, and her interest in young writers is a 
trait which immediately takes captive all persons of 

41 



42 GEORGE ELIOT. 

this class. We shall not forget with what kindness 
and earnestness she addressed a young girl who had 
just begun to handle a pen, how frankly she re- 
lated her own literary experience, and how gently 
she suggested advice. True genius is always allied 
to humanity, and in seeing Mrs. Lewes do the work 
of a good Samaritan so unobtrusively, we learned 
to respect the woman as much as we had ever ad- 
mired the writer. " For years," said she to us, " I 
wrote reviews because I knew too little of human- 
ity." 

George Eliot in her lifetime maintained a 
self-respecting privacy. She never allowed 
herself to be " interviewed " ; she shrank 
from having her personality made a subject of 
discussion in the press. No doubt she would 
gladly, if she could, have preserved her incog- 
nito intact and have shielded her real self be- 
hind her pen-name. Even to her friends she 
rarely spoke of herself. " I visited at Lewes','' 
says a correspondent of the Literary World, 
"and so had an acquaintance with that gifted 
lady for whom I felt (and feel) a sorrowful sym- 
pathy more than for any other woman. I con- 
jecture much about her, but we shall never know 
the truth as to her early life. It was one of acute 
suffering from being oppressed and misunder- 



GEORGE ELIOT. 43 



stood, and I am certain only of this — the fact 
that she was more sinned against than sin- 
ning. She was indeed a reserved and silent 
woman. I have been with her and Lewes 
alone ; and I know how she conversed in the 
privacy of her own fireside. Little, indeed, 
did she ever say, and what she did say was (as 
they phrase it in Scotland) in print : every 
word clean cut and perfectly enunciated. 
She asked questions (like Miss Dartle) and 
carefully received the answers. I have seen 
her, too, in company with ladies of position 
and rank, and heard her speak both English 
and French. She did not, however, shut her- 
self up. She received^ and was well known to 
(not by)^ every man of position in science, phi- 
losophy, poetry, art, and literature." 

Her wishes have been respected even since 
her death. No flood-tide of reminiscences, such 
as usually follow the decease of a noted char- 
acter, have been let loose upon the world by 
her friends. The few articles of a personal 
character Vv'hich have made their appearance 
have been entirely free from gossip ; they have 
touched only upon those traits and incidents 
which were not too sacredly individual to be 
commented upon in public. From the articles 



44 GEORGE ELIOT. 



of this nature I shall presenf a couple of 
selections, but I make way first for the follow- 
ing chatty letter, which represents about all 
the particulars that even a clever and inquisi- 
tive Yankee journalist could gather in her 
lifetime regarding her person and habits. 

George Eliot [v/rote a correspondent of the Chicago 
Times in 1868] is a woman who must have passed 
her tenth lustrum. Despite this, her hair, a light 
brown, has none of those silver threads which one 
might expect where the burden of over half a cen- 
tury of years is superimposed by incessant labor 
and by experience full of desolation. She is not 
handsome. Her face is long, pale, vv'ith a small sen- 
sitive mouth. Her eyes are a vivid, warm blue- 
gray, full of depth, now keenly perceptive, now 
dreamily introspective, always full of sadness. 
Her hair, worn low, gives a womanly effect to a 
finely intellectual forehead. Her general expres- 
sion is that of wearied sensitiveness whose develop- 
ment touches so closely on suffering that they 
merge into each other, leaving it doubtful where the 
one ends or the other begins. Despite its sadness 
and suggestions of suffering, it is a face full of reso- 
lute determination. This quality, however, seems 
the dominancy of pure will-power. Her slender 
figure has no expression of robust energy. Her 
will seems far in excess of her physical capacities ; 



GEORGE ELIOT. 45 



and her energy is thus an intellectual instead of a 
physical fact. She is, in spite of her sensitive sug- 
gestions, full of a grand repose. Her voice is low 
and penetrating ; and she is scarcely without ex- 
ception one of the greatest of living conversation- 
alists. " Do vou know Geor^-e Eliot well ? " I in- 
quired of a well-known essayist. " Yes, I do." 
*' What is your estimate of her ? " " Well, I '11 tell 
you. I am in a position where I often meet such 
people as Huxley, Tyndall, Browning, and others. 
I am not afraid to meet them, for I may say with- 
out any vanity that I am their peer. But witli 
George Eliot it is different. She knows more than 
I do. I am afraid of her. She knows every thing. 
History, philosophy, ancient and modern, all sciences 
and languages, are known to her. She is the most 
accomplished amateur pianiste in England." "And 
so you think — " " I think she is the most adora- 
ble woman that ever lived." What the witty Mrs. 
Trench once said of Madame de Stael, that " she is 
consolingly ugly," will apply to George Eliot, with 
the reservation, however, that her plain features are 
so sanctified by her expression that she becomes a 
very beautiful woman. She is morbidly sensitive 
in regard to her appearance and certain phases of 
her life. She has been offered fabulous sums by 
London photographers if she would sit for her pict- 
ure, but she has always refused. She goes little or 
not at all into society, but has weekly receptions to 



4^ GEORGE ELIOT, 



1 



which only a certain class is admitted. She may 
be often seen at the classical matinees given ^v^'iy 
Saturday at St. James' Hall ; and occasionally she 
may be seen in the street with a pair of spanking 
bays, a very swell carriage, and liveried servants. 
Her homie life is a charming one. She exer- 
cises an active supervision and develops a most com- 
prehensive management and exquisite taste in every 
detail of the household. In composition she is 
very slow and methodical, writing, I have been as- 
sured, not more than from forty to sixty lines a 
day. When a book is completed she is in such a 
state of nervous exhaustion that her husband takes 
her to Italy or southern France to recuperate. 
While writing, she must be scrupulously arranged 
as to person, while every detail of her surround- 
ings must be in harmonious taste. 

PEN PICTURE BY C. KEGAN PAUL. 

Mr. C. Kegan Paul, who enjoyed the privilege of 
a personal acquaintance with this gifted woman, 
has given, in a recent number of Harper s Monthly, 
the most vivid of all the descriptions of her per- 
sonal appearance in the following paragraphs. 

Perhaps no one filling a large portion of tlie 
tlioughts of the public in two hemispheres has ever 
been so little known to the public at large. Always 
in delicate health, always living a student life, 
caring little for what is called general society, though 



GEORGE ELIOT. 47 



taking a genial delight in that of her chosen friends, 
she very seldom appeared in public. She went to 
the houses of but a few, finding it less fatiguing to 
see her friends at home. Those who knew her by- 
sight beyond her own immediate circle did so from 
seeing her take her quiet drives in Regent's Park 
and the northern slopes of London, or from her 
attendance at those concerts at which the best 
music of the day was to be heard. There, in a 
front row, in rapt attention, were always to be seen 
Mr. and Mrs. Lewes, and none who saw that face 
ever forgot its power and spiritual beauty. To the 
casual observer there was but little of what is 
generally understood to be beauty of form. 

In more than one striking passage in his novels, 
Mr. Hardy has recognized the fact that the beauty 
of the future, as the race is more developed in 
intellect, can not be the ideal physical beauty of 
the past ; and in one of the most remarkable he 
says that " ideal physical beauty is incompatible 
with mental development and a full recognition of 
the coil of things. Mental luminousness must be 
fed with the oil of life, even thougli there is already 
a physical need for it." And this was the case 
with George Eliot. The face was one of a group 
of four, not all equally like each other, but all of 
the same spiritual family, and with a curious inter- 
dependence of likeness. These four are Dante, Sa- 
vonarola, Cardinal Newman, and herself. We 



GEORGE ELIOT. 



1 



only know one such other group, and that consist- 
ing of three only. It is that formed of the tradi- 
tional head of Christ (the well-known profile on a 
coin), Shakespeare, and St. Ignatius Loyola. In 
the group of which George Eliot was one there is 
the same straight wall of brow ; the droop of the 
powerful nose ; mobile lips, touched with strong 
passion kept resolutely under control ; a square 
jaw, which would make the face stern were it not 
counteracted by the sweet smile of lips and eye. 
We can hardly hope that posterity will ever know 
her from likenesses as those who had the honor of 
her acquaintance knew her in life. Only some 
world's artist could have handed her down as she 
lived, as Bellini has handed dov/n the Doge whom 
we all know so well on the walls of the National 
Gallery. The two or three portraits that exist, 
though valuable, give but a very imperfect present- 
ment. The mere shape of the head would be the 
despair of any painter. It was so grand and mas- 
sive that it would scarcely be possible to represent 
it without giving the idea of disproportion to the 
frame, of which no one ever thought for a moment 
when they saw her, although it was a surprise, when 
she stood up, to see that, after all, she was but a 
little fragile woman who bore this v/eight of brow 
and brain. 

It is difficult for any one admitted to the great 
honor of friendship with either Mr. Lewes or 



GEORGE ELIOT. 49 



George Eliot to speak of their home without seem- 
ing intrusive, in the same way that he would have 
been who, unauthorized, introduced visitors, yet 
something may be said to gratify a curiosity which 
surely is not now impertinent or ignoble. When 
London was full, the little drawing-room in St. 
John's Wood was now and then crowded to over- 
flowing with those who were glad to give their best 
of conversation, of information, and sometimes of 
music, always to listen with eager attention to 
whatever their hostess might say, when all that she 
said was worth hearing. Without a trace of ped- 
antry, she led the conversation to some great and 
lofty strain. Of herself and her works she never 
spoke ; of the works and thoughts of others she 
spoke with reverence, and sometimes even too 
great tolerance. But those afternoons had the 
highest pleasure when London was empty or the 
day wet, and only a few friends were present, so 
that her conversation assumed a more sustained 
tone than was possible when the rooms were full of 
shifting groups. It was then that, without any pre- 
meditation, her sentences fell as fully formed, as 
wise, as weighty, as epigrammatic, as any to be 
found in her books. Always ready, but never 
rapid, her talk was not only good in itself, but it 
encouraged the same in others, since she was an 
excellent listener, and eager to hear. Yet interest- 
ing as seemed to her, as well as to those admitted 



50 GEORGE ELIOT. 

to them, her afternoons in London, she was always 
glad to escape vv'hen summer came, either for one 
of the tours on the Continent in which she so de- 
lighted, or lately to the charming home she had 
made in Surrey. She never tired of the lovely 
scenery about Witley, and the great expanse of view 
obtainable from the tops of the many hills. It was 
on one of her drives in that neighborhood that a 
characteristic conversation took place betv/een her 
and one of the greatest English poets, whom she 
met as he was taking a walk. Even that short in- 
terval enabled them to get into somewhat deep 
conversation on evolution ; and as the poet after- 
ward related it to a companion on the same spot, 
he said : " Here was where I said ^ good-by ' to 
George Eliot ; and as she went down the hill, I 
said, 'Well, good-by, you and your molecules,' and 
she said to me, ' I am quite content with my mole- 
cules.' " A trifling anecdote, perhaps, but to those 
who will read between the lines, not other than 
characteristic of both speakers. 

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES BY ONE WHO KNEW 

HER. 

George Eliot was too great a woman to be guilty 
of any menial Phariseeism. She v>^as entirely free 
from that small scorn for the ordinary run of human- 
ity which some of the weaker brethren of the pen 
think proper to assume. In her own household she 



GEORGE ELIOT. 5 I 



laid upon herself the lowliest duties, not only with 
cheerfulness, but with a reverent sense of their im- 
portance. She prided herself upon being an ex- 
cellent housekeeper, she was a loyal friend, a tender 
and affectionate parent to her husband's children. 
The author of a remarkable article in the Contem- 
porary Review^ which was simply signed as " By 
one who knew her," dwells at some length upon this 
feature of her character. 

There was no taint of intellectual aristocracy [says 
this writer] in her sympathies. She once said, in re- 
ferring to Mendelssohn's visit to England, that the 
musician's power to move the crowd with a visible 
thrill of enthusiasm would have been the object of 
her aspiration, had she been allowed her choice of the 
form her genius might have taken. The yearning 
seemed an expression of that respectfulness for or- 
dinary mankind which embodied itself in portraiture 
that all could appreciate. Nothing recurs more em- 
phatically to the memory which seeks to gather up 
its records of her, than her vehement recoil from 
that spirit which identifies what is excellent with 
what is exceptional. The sacredness of humdrum 
work was one of the strongest convictions, bearing 
on practical life, which she ever thus expressed, 
and it must have been a large deduction from the 
happiness of her fame that it so often imposed on 
her (in cotnrr.on, we presume, with all persons of 
genius) the duty of checking the aspirations of that 



52 GEORGE ELIOT. 

large mass of average mankind that seeks an escape 
from the vocation which she felt so lofty a one. 
The writer once felt vividly how, even among her 
peers, what she m.ost valued was that which they 
shared with average humanity, on hearing her say 
of one of her few contemporaries whose genius was 
equal to her own, "/ always think of him as the 
husband of the dead wife." The distinction of 
eminent powers paled, in her eyes, before that of a 
faithful love — profound, indeed, and deathless, but 
not in this respect superior to many a one that lurks 
behind the curtain of utter dumbness, or even of 
trite words and humdrum reflections. In many 
ways the speech recurs as eminently characteristic 
of her, but most of all for the precedence which it 
gives the ordinary human bonds beyond all that is 
given to the elite of mankind. 

We pay a great tribute to any writer of such pow- 
ers as hers, in saying that her teaching impresses on 
the mind the excellence of patient work, of simple 
duty, of cheerful unselfishness. In a world where 
restless vanity is so active, and where we are all, 
more or less, tempted into the scramble for pre- 
eminence, we owe much to one who taught us, in 
unforgettable words, to prize the lowly path of ob- 
scure duty. In words, we are obliged to say, for, 
in recalling her life, the recollection of what looks 
like a claim either to exceptional immunity from 
the laws that bind ordinary human beings, or else to 



GEORGE ELIOT. 53 



an exceptional right to form a judgment on their 
scope, forces itself on the memory. But no plod- 
ding moralist could have more abhorred such a 
claim than she did. On one occasion she expressed, 
almost >yith indignation, her sense of the evil of a 
doctrine which compounded for moral deficiency in 
consideration of intellectual wealth, and her hearer 
failed to make her concede even that amount of 
truth in it which surely no deliberate viev/ of human 
difficulties and limitations could ultimately with- 
hold, and which seems to us illustrated by her own 
life. 

From one point of view she appeared almost as 
the humblest of human beings. "Do not, pray, 
think that I would dream of comparing myself to 
," she once said, with unquestionable earnest- 
ness, mentioning an author whom most people 
would consider as infmitely her inferior. And the 
slow, careful articulation and low voice suggested, 
at times, something almost like diffidence. Never- 
theless, mingled with this diffidence was a great 
consciousness of power, and one sometimes felt with 
her as if in the presence of royalty, while of course 
there were moments when one felt that exalted genius 
has some temptations in common with exalted rank. 
But they were only moments. Hov/ strong was the 
current of her sympathy in the direction of all 
humble effort, how reluctantly she checked pre- 
sumption ! Possibly she may sometimes have had 



54 GEORGE ELIOT. 

to reproach herself with failing to check it. Surely 
the most ordinary and uninteresting of her friends 
must feel that had they known nothing of her but 
her rapid insight into and quick response to their 
inmost feelings she would still have been a memo- 
rable personality to them. This sympathy was ex- 
tended to the sorrows most unlike any thing she 
could ever by any possibility have known ; the fail- 
ures of life obtained as large a share of her com- 
passion as its sorrows. 

Her aspirations to become a permanent source of 
joy and peace to mankind have been set forth in 
lines which, although they seem to us rather fine 
rhetoric than poetry, have already become almost 
classic. The wish to console and cheer was indeed 
rooted in the most vital part of her nature. The 
writer remembers her asking a person whose society 
gave her no pleasure, and v/ho was not unlikely to 
have abused the position thus accorded, to come to 
her at any time that her society might be felt as 
consolatory, at a time of trouble. It was about the 
same time that she spoke of the sense of a load of 
possible achievement threatened by the shortening 
span of life with a deep sadness which in recalling 
the conversation seems like a prophecy. And yet 
none of these recollections recur to the present 
writer with such a rush of pathos as a few words 
that any one might have spoken, describing 
what she felt in disregarding an appeal for alms in 
the street. 



GEORGE ELIOT. 55 

She was much distressed, and (if the writer 
may judge from very slight indications) much sur- 
prised, to hear her works called depressing. She 
almost invariably, we believe, avoided reading any 
notices of them ; but her rule could not have been 
quite invariable, for we recall a quaint and pathetic 
little outburst of disappointment that the result of 
perusing her works should produce on some critic 
or other "a tendency toward black despair" — or 
some such expression, which, if our memory serves, 
she quoted with a touch of humorous exaggeration. 
Perhaps we shall appear merely to echo the judg- 
ment of this critic when we give it as a record of 
the impression she produced that one of the great- 
est duties of life was that of resignation. Nothing 
in the intercourse here recalled was more impressive 
as exhibiting the po\ver of feelings to survive the 
convictions which gave them birth, than the earnest- 
ness with which she dwelt on this as the great and 
real remedy for all the ills of life. One instance in 
which she appeared to apply it to herself, in speak- 
ing of the short span of life that lay before her, 
and the large amount of achievement that must be 
laid aside as impossible to compress into it, has been 
mentioned — and the sad gentle tones in which the 
word resignation was on that occasion uttered still 
vibrate on the ear. Strange that it should be 
thought possible to transfer all that belongs to alle- 
giance to the Will that ordains our fate except a be- 



5^ GEORGE ELIOT. 



lief in the existence of such a Will ! Still more 
wonderful that the imagination of genius did actu- 
ally achieve this transference to some extent. We 
regret the attempts made by some of the admirers 
of this noble woman to conceal, from themselves 
or others, the vacuum at the centre of her faith. 
There is this excuse for such confusion, that her 
works, more than any others of our day, though it 
is. true of so many, embody the morality that cen- 
tres in the faith of Christ, apart from this centre. 
She once said to the writer that in conversation 
with the narrowest and least cultivated Evangelical 
she could feel more sympathy than divergence ; 
and it was impossible to doubt the fulness of mean- 
ing in her v>^ords. But there is no reason that those 
who reverenced her should try to veil or dilute her 
convictions. She made no secret of them, though 
the glow of feeling always hitherto associated with 
their opposites may have confused their outline to 
many of her disciples. "Deism," she once said, 
" seems to me the most incoherent of all systems, 
but to Christianity I feel no objection but its want 
of evidence." 

Must one who feels this severance of love of man 
from faith in God, the great misfortune of our time, 
yet allow that the thing that is left acquires, for the 
moment, a sudden influx of new energy by the very 
fact of its severance ? It would not be looking 
facts fairly in the face to deny that the genius of 



GEORGE ELIOT. 5/ 



George Eliot seems to show such a result. Nor is 
there any real difficulty in making the concession. 
A bud may open more quickly in water in a warm 
room than on its parent stem, although thus the 
seed will never ripen. We may transfer conviction 
to a more genial atmosphere at the very moment we 
sever it from its root, and we must wait long to dis- 
cover that the life that is quickened in it is also 
threatened. What may be most apparent at the 
7no77ient that faith in God expires may be the sud- 
den release of a mystic fervor that has all to be em- 
ployed in the service of man. This, we believe, is 
v.'hat was felt, oftenest unconsciously, in the writings 
of George Eliot. " What I look to," she once said, 
" is a time when the impulse to help our fellows shall 
be as immediate and as irresistible as that which I feel 
to grasp something firm if I am falling," and the 
eloquent gesture with which she grasped the mantel- 
piece as she spoke, remains in the memory as the 
expression of a sort of transmuted prayer. And 
now the look and the tones recur not only as one of 
the most valued passages in a valued chapter of 
memory, but as a sort of gathering up, in a noble 
but mutilated aspiration, of the ideal given by a 
lofty genius to the world. 




CHAPTER III. 

JOHN RUSKIN. 

Personal appearance — His residence and surroundings — Personal ec- 
centricities — His friendship with Carlyle. 

" STUDENT," writing to Lippincott" s 
Magazme a few years ago, gives the fol- 
lowing description of the personal appearance 
of the greatest art critic of our time. 

Never shall I forget the first, last, and only time 
1 ever saw John Ruskin. His picture had hung for 
many years just over my study-table — that sweet al- 
most angelic face, which in somewhat coarser exe- 
cution, still the same in character, fronts the title- 
page of some of his works. Who that has seen it 
has forgotten it ? It is almost a child's face, and 
has not a little of the charm which invests one of 
Raphael's Sistine cherubs. But the real Ruskin, 
how different ! I think he is the plainest man I 
ever saw : at any rate, no face has ever impressed 
me with so much ugliness. And as if to intensify 
nature, his manner of wearing his hair and his rude- 



yOHX RUSKIN. 59 



ly-fitting dress only emphasized the natural want of 
charms. Riiskin's face has neither fineness of feat- 
ure nor winning expression. His eye, it is true, is 
large and eloquent, but not enough so to offset the 
rest of the face. He read a paper to a few friends 
that evening — not with much elegance, but with a 
jerky, unnatural flinging out of the words, quite un- 
like the flow of a good American reader. But the 
charm was underneath, in the thought itself, whicli, 
like every thing of Ruskin's, was original, paradoxi- 
cal, stimulating. The paper was afterward printed 
and forms the first half of his Sesame and Lilies. 
He is a good American-hater, lives in great seclusion 
on Denmark Hill, one of the suburbs of London, is 
princely in his generosities, gracious to all young 
art students who seek his advice, and, v/ith all his 
feudal tendencies, incontestably one of the noblest 
spirits of our age. 

A somewhat more flattering pen-portrait 
is contained in this extract from Harper s 
Monthly. 

RUSKIN AT HOME. 

On one of those blissful mornings which pass the 
year insensibly from spring to summer — beneath 
whose glow England expands like a water-lily on 
her silver seas — I sat in the study of the most emi- 
nent art critic in the world. The house is in one of 



6o JOHN RUSK IN. 



the most beautiful suburbs of London, a house em- 
bov/ered with trees — not the mere ornamental shrubs 
sometimes called trees, but grand old patriarchs 
that had watched over the home and the grounds 
for a hundred years. In this mansion every thing 
betokened wealth, taste, and elegance. The halls 
ended in airy apartments, and these opened to con- 
servatories lustrous with floral offerings from every 
zone, and the air was laden with breaths that told of 
far-off tropic affluence and the ever-burning incense 
of the Orient. The luminous walls and tinted ceil- 
ings combined to give the best light to the choicest 
works of art, gathered from every age and country. 
The statues looked down pure and tender, like those 
which, transfigured in dim remembrance, ever beck- 
oned wandering Mignon back to her home in the 
South. As I v/aited in the library, gazing now at 
the pictures, and now at the fresh lawns stretching 
from the low windows, I seemed to be in the ideal 
home of a man elect by destiny to study the beau- 
tiful, and to train the eyes of the world to see it as, 
visibly and invisibly, it environs closely each earthly 
lot. 

At length the man himself appeared. He was 
bland, affable, and kindly in manner, but still with 
something retractile about him, as of one over-sen- 
sitive and on guard over too quick sympathies. He 
had the look and voice of an idealist, but not the 
calmness of the optimist. He was emotional and 



JOHN RUSKIX. 6 1 

nervous, and liis voice, though rich and sweet, had 
a tendency to sink into a plaintive and hopeless 
tone. His large, light eye was soft and genial, his 
mouth was thin and severe. The brow was prom- 
inent, and suggested power ; the chin v/as reced- 
ing, and indicated a lack of ])atient endurance. 
I felt at once a discrepancy between the man and 
his home ; the home meant contentment and peace 
— the man meant restless striving, severe discon- 
tent, ideals unfulfilled. He showed me many ex- 
quisite works of art by the greatest masters ; but 
turned away from them, one after the other, as 
might Tantalus, if, while he gasped for fruits, blos- 
soms had been set before him. And indeed I 
found during the conversation that it was about in 
this way the beautiful works struck him. He had 
lived among them and grown among them; they repre- 
sented phases and epochs of his mental and moral 
history; but he had been by them trained to crav- 
ings and hopes which they could not satisfy. They 
too plainly heightened his ideal to a point where the 
earth could not fulfil it, and he stood, as it were, 
shivering over a lonely, unsheltered mountain peak, 
from which he could not descend, but which 
dwarfed the common world. Every beautiful work 
he touched corresponded with some woe that the 
world was suffering, as lights imply shadows. When 
he gazed upon some favorite picture he looked like 
a radiant child ; another moment the picture passed, 



62 JOHN RUSKIN. 



and, under some remembrance of his own or others* 
sorrows, he ay)peared to be eighty. 

The conversation of this great man I refrain 
from repeating ; the burden of it was that the art 
of the present day is. like its religion, imitative ; 
a repetition of forms which once had significance 
and life, but now have none ; a calling out of our 
darkness to the ancient masters, " Give us of your 
oil " ; and that this is so because the world is too 
miserable, too deformed and diseased, to feed the 
sacred lamps of art. To build up a beautiful and 
characteristic art the work must not be begun with 
aesthetic but with moral criticism ; it is not to 
come of taste and culture, but of political and so- 
cial reform. In a word, there can be no true art 
where the poor have not happy homes. 

In his personal characteristics Mr. Ruskin is 
not only one of the most whimsical, but one of 
the kindliest and most lovable of men. '' He 
is idolized by his neighbors," writes a lady 
living in his vicinity, " we all look upon him 
as something even nearer than a friend, — as a 
loved and valued relation." He is full of 
benevolent crotchets. It is well known that 
he inherited a princely fortune, but he divided 
the bulk of it among his needy kinsmen, re- 
serving to himself only ;£"3000 a year. A large 



JOHN RUSK IN. 63 



part of this sum he squanders with the idea of 
benefiting his fellow-man. At the time, for 
instance, when a great clamor was raised about 
adulterations in food he started a tea-store for 
the express purpose of supplying the British 
workingman with good and cheap tea. He not 
only lost money in the enterprise — as indeed 
he had expected to do — but, through the dis- 
honesty of those he dealt with, he kept a very 
poor article of tea. And yet this kindly eccen- 
tric can be very bitter with his pen. Here is a 
sample of the sort of letters he is capable of 
writing to those who apply to him for intel- 
lectual assistance ; in this case the answer 
being directed to the President of the Liberal 
Club at Oxford, who had been anxious to learn 
his views upon the political question^ of the 
day. 

My Dear Sir : What in the devil's name have 
you to do with either ]\Ir. Disraeli or Mr. Glad- 
stone ? You are students at the university, and 
have no more business with politics than you have 
with rat-catching. 

Had you ever read ten words of mine with under- 
standing, you v/ould have known that I care no 
more either for Mr. Disraeli or Mr. Gladstone than 
for two old bagpipes with the drones going Ly 



64 JOHN RUSKIN. 



steam, but that I hate all Liberalism as I do Beelze- 
bub, and that, with Carlyle, I stand, we two alone 
now in England, for God and the Queen. 
Ever faithfully yours, 

J. RUSKIN. 

The mention of Carlyle is characteristic. 
Raskin's devotion to Carlyle amounts to abso- 
lute idolatry, and has been peculiarly unfor- 
tunate to himself. " The amount of nonsense," 
says Justin McCarthy, "that Ruskin has talked 
and written, under the evident conviction that 
thus and not otherwise would Thomas Carlyle 
have dealt with the subject, is something al- 
most inconceivable. I never heard of Ruskin 
taking up any political question without being 
on the wrong side of it. I am not merely 
speaking of what I personally consider the 
wrong side ; I am alluding to questions which 
history and hard fact and the common voice 
and feeling of humanity have since decided. 
Against every movement to give political free- 
dom to his countrymen, against every move- 
ment to do common justice to the negro race, 
against every effort to secure fair play for a 
democratic cause, Mr. Ruskin has peremptorily 
arrayed himself. * I am a Kingsman and no 
Mobsman,' he declares ; and this declaration 



JOHN RUSK IN. 65 

seems in his mind to settle the question and 
to justify his vindication of every despotism of 
caste or sovereignty. To this has his doctrine 
of aesthetic moral law, to this has his worship 
of Carlyle, conducted him." 

Indeed, when a self-conceited man makes an- 
other man his idol, his very self-conceit only 
tends to render him more awkwardly and un- 
conditionally servile. 

A clever imitation of Carlyle's style once ap- 
peared in the public papers, in the shape of a 
letter upon some question of the day, purport- 
ing to be written by Carlyle himself. Out 
came Ruskin with another letter, in which he 
hailed the forgery as '' not the least signifi- 
cant among the utterances of my Master." 
The ink upon Ruskin's letter v/as hardly dry 
before Carlyle issued a denunciation of the im- 
posture and indignantly disclaimed the opin- 
ions that had been put in his mouth. 

Carlyle, indeed, seemed to take not a little 
pleasure in publicly snubbing his erratic dis- 
ciple. On another occasion Ruskin sent a letter 
to the papers on the subject of the alleged bad 
manners of the English people, as compared 
with those of the Continental nations; and he 
stated, as an illustration of this, that Carlyle 



66 JOHN RUSK IN. 

could not walk out in the streets of Chelsea 
without being subjected to insult by the 
" roughs ' of that region. Carlyle at once wrote 
to say that there was no truth in the allegation ; 
in fact, he penned no fewer than three notes 
contradicting the report, — "an exhibition of 
candor," says the chronicler of the story, "that 
did not pass without comment, especially 
among those who could recall the time when 
Carlyle was wont to sally forth on horseback 
every Wednesday to enjoy a ride on Denmark 
Hill with his friend and worshipper." 

In his private intercourse with his " Mas- 
ter," however, Ruskin was not only a tender 
and devoted friend, but he often exerted a 
beneficial influence upon the rough and rugged 
old Scotchman. 

" He could,'' says G. W. Smalley, " take lib- 
erties with Carlyle which nobody else ventured 
upon. Everybody knows that at times Carlyle 
became vehement, and the conversation, if he 
were contradicted or argued against, was likely 
to be stormy. When Mrs. Carlyle was alive, 
she used to break in upon these scenes with the 
Parliamentary cry, '■ Divide, Divide, Divide ' — - 
the signal for the end of a debate. I have seen 



JOHN RUSK IN. 67 



Mr. Ruskin in similar circumstances walk up to 
Carlyle, put his arm about his neck, and hush 
him tenderly to silence and calm. I hardly 
know whether I ought to mention such an in- 
cident, but my mention of it is, at any rate, 
reverent as the act was." 




CHAPTER IV. 

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, 

Cardinal Newman at Oxford — His influence over the undergraduates 
in his early days— His sermons at St. Mary's Church. 

HE following sketch of John Henry- 
Newman in his early days is taken from 
Principal Shairp's essay on Keble. 

The influence he had gained, apparently without 
setting himself to seek it, was something altogether 
unlike any thing else in our time. A mysterious 
veneration had by degrees gathered round him, till 
now it M^as almost as though some Ambrose or 
Augustine of elder ages had reappeared. He him- 
self tells how one day when he was an under- 
graduate, a friend with whom he was walking in 
the Oxford street cried out eagerly, " There 's 
Keble ! " and with what awe he looked at him. A 
few years, and the same took place with regard to 
himself. In Oriel Lane light-hearted undergrad- 
uates would drop their voices and whisper, "There 's 
Newman ! " when, head thrust forward and gaze 

68 



JOHN HENR Y NE WMAN, 69 

fixed as though on some vision seen only by him- 
self, with swift, noiseless step he glided by. Awe 
fell on them for a moment almost as if it had been 
some apparition that had passed. For his inner 
circle of friends, many of them younger men, he 
was said to have a quite romantic affection, v/hich 
they returned with the most ardent devotion and 
the intensest faith in him. But to the outer world 
he was a mystery. What were the qualities that 
inspired these feelings ? There were, of course, 
learning and refinement, there was genius, not in- 
deed of a philosopher, but of a subtle and original 
thinker, an unequalled edge of dialectic, and these 
all glorified by the imagination of a poet. Then 
there was the utter unworldliness, the setting at 
naught of all things which men most prize, the 
tamelessness of soul, which was ready to essay the 
impossible. Men felt that here was 

" One of that small transfignared band 
Which the world could not tame." 

It was this mysteriousness which, beyond all his 
gifts of head and heart, so strangely fascinated 
and overawed — that something about him which 
made it impossible to reckon his course and take 
his bearing, that soul-hunger and quenchless yearn- 
ing which nothing short of the eternal could satisfy. 
This deep and resolute ardor, this tenderness yet 
severity of soul, were no doubt an offense not to be 



70 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 

forgiven by older men, especially by the wary and 
worldly wise ; but in these lay the very spell which 
drew to him the hearts of all the younger and the 
more enthusiastic. Such was the impression he 
had made in Oxford just before he had relinquished 
his hold on it. And if at that time it seemed to 
persons at a distance extravagant and absurd, they 
may since have learned that there was in him who 
was the object of this reverence enough to justify it. 
But, it may be asked, what actions or definite re- 
sults v/ere there to account for so deep and wide- 
spread a veneration ? There were no doubt the 
products of his prolific pen, his works, controversial, 
theological, religious. But none of them were so 
deep in learning as some of Dr. Pusey's writings^ 
nor so widely popular as the " Christian Year " ; 
and yet both Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble were at that 
time quite second in importance to Mr. Newman. 
The centre from which his power went forth was 
the pulpit of St. Mary's, with those wonderful after- 
noon sermons Sunday after Sunday, month by 
month, year by year, they went on, each continuing 
and deepening the impression the last had made. 
The service was very simple, no pomp, no ritualism ; 
for it was characteristic of the leading men of the 
movement that they left these things to the weaker 
brethren. Their thoughts, at all events, were set 
on great questions which touched the heart of un-" 
seen things. About the service the most remark- 



JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 7 1 

able thing was the beauty, the silver intonation of 
Mr. Newman's voice as he read the Lessons. It 
seemed to bring new meaning out of the familiar 
words. Still lingers in memory the tone with which 
he read, " But Jerusalem which is above is free, 
which is the mother of us all." When he began to 
preach, a stranger was not likely to be much struck, 
especially if he had been accustomed to pulpit ora- 
tory of the Boanerges sort. Here was no vehe- 
mence, no declamation, no show of elaborated argu- 
ment : so that one who came prepared to hear "a 
great intellectual treat" was almost sure to go away 
disappointed. Indeed, I believe that if he had 
preached one of his St. Mary's sermons before a 
Scotch town congregation they would have thought 
the preacher a *' silly body." The delivery had a pe- 
culiarity which it took a new hearer some time to 
get over. Each separate sentence, or at least each 
short paragraph, was spoken rapidly, but with great 
clearness of intonation ; and then at its close there 
was a pause, lasting for nearly a half a minute; then 
another rapidly but clearly spoken sentence, fol- 
lowed by another pause. It took some time to get 
over this, but, that once done, the wonderful charm 
began to dawn on you. The look and bearing of 
the preacher were as of one who dwelt apart, who, 
though he knew his age well, did not live in it. 
From his seclusion of study and abstinence and 
prayer, from habitual dwelling in the unseen, lie 



72 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 

seemed to come forth that one day of the week to 
speak to others of the things he had seen and 
known. Those who never heard him might fancy 
that his sermons would generally be about apostolical 
succession, or rights of the Church, or against Dis- 
senters. Nothing of the kind. You might hear 
him preach for weeks without an allusion to these 
things. What there was of High Church teaching 
was implied rather than enforced. The local, the 
temporary, and the modern were ennobled by the 
presence of the catholic truth belonging to all ages 
that pervaded the whole. His power showed itself 
chiefly in the new and unlooked-for way in which 
he touched into life old truths, moral or spiritual, 
which all Christians acknowledge, but most have 
ceased to feel. As he spoke, how the old truth 
became new ! how it came home with a meaning 
never felt before ! He laid his finger — how gently, 
yet how pov/erfully ! — on some inner place in the 
hearer's heart, and told him things about himself 
he had never knov/n till then. Subtlest truths 
which it would have taken philosophers pages of 
circumlocution and big words to state were dropt 
out by the way in a sentence or two of the most 
transparent Saxon. What delicacy of style, yet 
what calm power ! how gentle, yet how strong ! 
how simple, yet how suggestive ! how homely, yet 
how refined ! how penetrating, yet how tender- 
hearted ! If now and then there was a forlorn un- 



JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 'J I 



dertone which at the time seemed inexplicable, if 
he spoke of "many a sad secret which a man dare 
not tell, lest he find no sympathy," of "secrets lying 
like cold ice upon the heart," of "some solitary, 
incommunicable grief," you might feel perplexed at 
the drift of what he spoke, but you felt all the more 
drawn to the speaker. To call these sermons elo- 
quent would be no word for them ; high poems 
they rather were, as of an inspired singer, or the 
outpourings of a prophet, rapt yet self-possessed. 
And the tone of voice in which they were spoken, 
once you grew accustomed to it, sounded like a f^ne 
strain of unearthly music. Through the stillness of 
that high Gothic building the words fell on the ear 
like the measured drippings of water in some vast 
dim cave. After hearing these sermons you might 
come away still not believing the tenets peculiar to 
the High Church system, but you would be harder 
than most men if you did not feel more than ever 
ashamed of coarseness, selfishness, worldliness, — if 
you did not feel the things of faith brought closer 
to the soul. 




CHAPTER V. 

ALFRED TENNYSON. 

Tennyson as a recluse— His avoidance of general society— Pestered by 
sight-seers and photographers— Descriptions of his personal appear- 
ance by Fanny Butler and Hawthorne— A visit from Tennyson to 
Caroline Fox — A newspaper Mosa.ic. 

HERE is no public man of our day 
whose private life has been kept so 
sacredly shrouded from the vulgar gaze as that 
of Tennyson. His studies, his tastes, and 
something of his personal character may in- 
deed be traced in his writings, — with an essen- 
tially lyrical poet Vv^ho sings out of a full heart 
it could not well be otherwise, — but his history 
evades us. He has been largely written about 
by those who know him, but they have con- 
spicuously omitted to tell us any thing about 
him. He figures in Home's *' Spirit of the 
Age " (published in 1844), — and the express pur- 
pose of that book was to give some insight 
into the private as well as the public life of the 
noted men of the day, — but, with twenty pages 

74 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 75 

of criticism on the poet, these dozen lines 
are all that relate to the man : 

*' He has brothers and sisters living, who are 
all possessed of superior attainments. Avoid- 
ing general society, he would prefer to sit up 
all night talking with a friend, or else to sit 
* and think alone.' Beyond a very small circle 
he is never to be met. There is nothing event- 
ful in his biography, of a kind which would 
interest the public ; and, v/ishing to respect the 
retirement he unaffectedly desires, we close the 
present paper." 

Even that inveterate bookmaker, William 
Howitt, in his *' Homes and Haunts of the 
Poets," confesses himself baffled by this deter- 
mined privacy. " Alfred Tennyson," he says, 
'* moves on his way through life heard but by 
the public unseen. We might put to him a 
question similar to that which Wordsworth put 
to the cuckoo, and our question would have 
like answer. Many an admiring man may have 
said with Solomon of old, ' I have sought him, 
but I could not find him ; I called him, but 
he answered not.' " Howitt gives the follow- 
ing as the substance of all that he has been 
able to learn about Tennyson : '' I believe he 
has spent some years in London, and he may 



76 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

be traced to Hastings, Eastbourne, Chelten- 
ham, the Isle of Wight, and the like places. 
It is very possible you may come across him in 
a country inn, with a foot on each hob of the 
fireplace, a volume of Greek in one hand, his 
meerschaum in the other, so far advanced 
toward the seventh heaven that he would not 
thank you to call him back into this nether 
world. Wherever he is, however, in some still 
nook of enormous London, or the stiller one 
of some far-off sea-side hamlet, he is pondering 
a lay for eternity : 

Losing his fine and active might 

In a silent meditation, 
Falling into a still delight 

And luxury of contemplation. 

" That luxury shall, one day, be mine and 
yours, transferred to us in the shape of a third 
volume: so come away and don't disturb 
him." 

This very isolation of Tennyson's has whetted 
curiosity to an intense degree. No house has 
been so besieged by tourists as his Isle of 
Wight residence. A few years ago a para- 
graph went the rounds of the press describing 
what he had to suffer at the hands of these 



I 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 77 

creatures. He was obliged to build a high 
wall about his grounds, with locked gates, to 
keep curious people away. The locked-out 
crowd, we are told, prowl outside, and climb 
up and look over, There is a row of heads all 
around the wall. When Tennyson comes out 
to walk in his garden the crowd rushes fran- 
tically to the side where he is. Photographers 
stand read)^ at all angles to catch pictures of 
him. Some of them have made holes in the 
wall and inserted the tubes of the cameras 
therein, where they remain stationary, their 
owners hoping and watching for a chance to 
take the poet's picture. When he is discovered, 
the cameras are put in residence and the pho- 
tographers take aim, happy if they secure a 
glimpse of the corner of his cloak or a rear view 
of him bending to smell a violet in its bed. 
He looks despairingly at the heads, he frowns 
at them in vain. They stare, they make au- 
dible comments about him. " Why does he 
stand there like a post ? " says one. — *' Like a 
Stoughton bottle," says another. — '' What queer 
buttons he has ! " — " And where could he have 
found that cloak ? " say they. They bring their 
dinners and lie in wait for him. The land 
around is trampled, the grass is killed, and the 



78 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

earth is strewn with dinner-papers, crusts, and 
empty beer-bottles. A path lies around the 
walls, trodden hard as adamant. 

Fanny Kemble has a brief allusion, in her 
*' Records of a Girlhood," to an evening spent 
with Tennyson. She confesses herself a little 
disappointed with the exterior of the poet *' in 
spite of his eyes, which are very fine ; his hear^ 
and face, striking and dignified as they are, are 
almost too ponderous and massive for beauty 
in so young a man ; and every now and then 
there is a slight sarcastic expression about his 
mouth that almost frightens me, in spite of his 
shy manner and habitual silence. But, after 
all, it is delightful to see and be with any one 
that one admires and loves for what he has 
done, as I do him." 

This was in 1832. Twenty-two years later, 
in a ramble through the Manchester Exhibition 
Rooms, Hawthorne saw Tennyson in his serene 
and cheerful maturity. *' Gazing at him with 
all my eyes," says the American romancer in 
his " Note-Books," " I liked him well, and re- 
joiced more in him than in all the other won- 
ders of the Exhibition. '^ '^ "^ He is as 
un-English as possible ; indeed, an Englishman 
of genius usually lacks the national character- 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 79 

istics and is great abnormally. Un-English as 
he was, Tennyson had not, however, an Amer- 
ican look. I cannot well describe the differ- 
ence, but there was something more mellow in 
him — softer, sweeter, broader, more simple than 
we are apt to be. Living apart from men, as 
he does, would hurt any one of us more than 
it does him. I may as well leave him here, for 
I cannot touch the central point." When Mr. 
Fields some years afterward told Tennyson, 
who was then engaged in reading the '' Twice- 
Told Tales," that Hawthorne had seen him at 
Manchester, but did not make himself known, 
the Laureate said, in his frank and hearty man- 
ner, " Why did n't he come up and let me 
shake hands with him? I am sure I would 
have been glad to meet a man like Hawthorne 
anywhere." 

In Caroline Fox's recently published '' Mem- 
ories of Old Friends," I find the following ac- 
count of 

A VISIT FROM TENNYSON. 

Falmouth^ September 22, 1866. — When Alfred Ten- 
nyson and his friend Francis Palgrave were at Fal- 
mouth, they made inquiries about the Grove Hill"*^ 

* Supposed to be an original sketch for the picture of the 
Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, and now in the possession 
of Robert Fox at Falmouth. 



So ALFRED TENNYSON. 

Leonardo, so of course we asked them to come 
and see it ; and thus we had a visit of two glorious 
hours both here and in the other garden. As Ten- 
nyson has a perfect horror of being lionized, we 
left him very much to himself for a while, till he 
took the initiative and came forth. Apropos of the 
Leonardo, he said that the head of Christ in the 
Raising of Lazarus was to his mind the v/orthiest 
representation of the subject which he had ever 
seen. His bright, thoughtful friend, Francis Pal- 
grave, was the more fond of pictures of the two : 
they both delighted in the little Cuyp and the great 
Correggio ; thought the Guido a pleasant thing to 
have, though feeble enough ; believed in the Leon- 
ardo ; and Palgrave gloated over the big vase. On 
the leads we were all very happy and talked apace. 
" The great T." groaned a little over the lionizing 
to which he is subject, and wondered how it came 
out at Falmouth that he was here : this was apropos 
of my speaking of Henry Hallam's story of a 
miner hiding behind a wall to look at him, which 
he did not remember ; but when he heard the name 
of Hallam, how his great gray eyes opened, and 
gave one a moment's glimpse into the depths in 
which " In Memoriam " learned its infinite wail. 
He talked a good deal of his former visit to Corn- 
wall, and his accident at Bude, all owing to a stupid 
servant-maid. In the garden he was greatly inter- 
ested, for he, too, is trying to acclimatize plants, but 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 8 I 

finds us far ahead, because he is at the western ex- 
tremity of the Isle of Wight, where the keen winds 
cut up their trees and scare away the nightingales 
in consequence. But he is proud and happy in a 
great magnolia in his garden. He talked of the 
Cornish, and rather liked the conceit of their coun- 
tryism ; was amused to hear of the refractory 
Truro clergyman being buried by the Cornish 
miners, whom he forbade to sing at their own 
funeral ; but he thought it rather an unfortunate in- 
stance of the civilizing power of Wesley. By de- 
grees we got to Guinevere, and he spoke kindly of 
S. Hodges' picture of her at the Polytechnic, though 
he doubted if it told the story very distinctly. This 
led to real talk of Arthur and the " Idyls," and his 
firm belief in him as an historical personage, though 
old Speed's narrative has much that can be only 
traditional. He found great difficulty in recon- 
structing the character, in connecting modern with 
ancient feeling in representing the ideal king. I 
asked whether Vivien might not be the old Brittany 
fairy who wiled Merlin into her net, and not an 
actual woman. "But no," he said ; " it is full of dis- 
tinct personality, though I never expect women to 
like it." The river Camel he well believes in, par- 
ticularly as he slipped his foot and fell in the other 
day, but found no Excalibur. Camel means simply 
winding, crooked, like the Cam at Cambridge. The 
Welsh claim Arthur as their own, but Tennyson 



82 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

gives all his votes to us. Some have urged him to 
continue the " Idyls," but he does not feel it ex- 
pedient to take people's advice as an absolute law, 
but to wait for the vision. He reads the reviews 
of his poems, and is amused to find how often he 
is misunderstood. Poets often misinterpret poets, 
and he has never seen an artist truly illustrate a 
poet. Talked of Garibaldi, whose life was like one 
out of Plutarch, he said, so grand and simple ; and 
of Ruskin, as one who has said many foolish things ; 
and of John Sterling, whom he met twice, and 
whose conversational powers he well remembers. 

Tennyson is a grand specimen of a man, with a 
magnificent head set on his shoulders like the capi- 
tal of a mighty pillar. His hair is long and wavy 
and covers a massive head. He wears a beard and 
moustache, which one begrudges as hiding so much 
of that firm, powerful, but finely chiselled mouth. 
His eyes are large and gray, and open wide when a 
subject interests him ; they are well shaded by the 
noble brow, with its strong lines of thought and suf- 
fering. I can quite understand Samuel Laurence 
calling it the best balance of head he had ever seen. 

These excerpts represent about all the ref- 
erences to Tennyson which are to be found in 
contemporary volumes of biography or rem- 
niscence. But since the advent of the pro- 
fessional " interviewer," a number of para- 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 83 

graphs regarding the poet have been set float- 
ing through the daily press, and from these 
sources I have constructed the following mo- 
saic, which, while it does not rise to the dignity 
of a '' pen picture," at least contains some in- 
formation in regard to the habits and personal 
peculiarities of the Laureate. 

SOME JOURNALISTIC TENNYSONIANA. 

Tennyson's manner fwe are told] has a brusque- 
ness and bluntness about it which is at first rather 
startling to one who has only known him through 
his books. He utters his opinions in a plain, 
straightforward way, choosing the homeliest Saxon 
words and rarely rising to any thing like the heroic 
strain. His disregard of the conventionalities of 
life is, however, thoroughly natural and unaffected. 
" His customary suit of light gray, hanging about 
him in many a fold, like the hide of a rhinoceros, 
the loose, ill-fitting collar and carelessly knotted tie, 
the wide, low boots, are not worn, you may be sure, 
for artistic effect, or with the foppishness of a 
Byron." He is an inveterate smoker. Poet and 
dweller in the empyrean though he be, he knows 
nothing of Ruskin's scorn for those who " pollute 
the pure air of morning with cigar smoke." But 
he does not affect the mild Havana in any of its 
varied forms. A brother poet who spent a week 
with him at his country-seat says that Partagas, 



84 ALFRED TENNYSON. 

Regalias, and Cabanas have no charm for him. 
He prefers a pipe, and of all pipes in the world the 
common clay pipe is his choicCc His den is at the 
top of the house. When he sits down to work in 
the morning a huge tobacco- jar, big enough for an 
ancestral urn, is at his feet, together with a box full 
of white clay pipes. Filling one of these, he smokes 
until it is empty, breaks it in twain, and throws the 
fragments into another box prepared for their re- 
ception. Then he pulls out a fresh pipe, fills it, 
smokes it, and destroys it as before. He will not 
smoke a pipe the second time. While at work he 
allows no one to disturb him, unless upon an er- 
rand of life or death ; but as soon as his morning's 
labors are over he is glad to see his friends, sends 
for them, indeed, if they be in the house, or an- 
nounces by a little bell his readiness to receive 
them. But his chief delight is not in communion 
with his fellows. Rather is it to lounge at the win- 
dow of his study, surrounded by a few choice books 
of favorite authors, and in full view of the magnifi- 
cent island scenery, with the gray line of undulat- 
ing hills and the streak of silver sea in the distance. 
At other times he will wander down to the zigzag 
pathways that meander in all directions through the 
tall hazel twigs which hem his house around, where 
one comes suddenly on a little secluded dale bright 
with mossy verdure, or a garden laden with odors 
from a score of pine-trees, or a bigger lawn devoted 



ALFRED TENNYSON. 85 

to the innocent pursuit of croquet or lawn-tennis. 
Less frequently he may be seen walking through 
the neighboring byways and exciting the curiosity 
of the village folks by the strangeness of his mien 
and the eccentricity of his costume. In all his out- 
of-door excursions he is sure to be accompanied by 
one or other of his handsome sons, " full-limbed and 
tall." She, the "dear, near and true," whose sweet 
faith in him was ever the incentive to greater labor 
and higher aspirations, is no longer able to be by 
his side in work ; but invalid as she is, she still 
finds opportunity for ministering to the wants of 
the poor about her gates. 




CHAPTER VI. 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

Emerson as a lecturer, by N. P. Willis — Miss Bremer's visit to the 
Emerson household — Hawthorne's account of Emerson and his 
admirers. 

F Mr. Emerson's personal appearance 
upon the platform in the old days 
when he was one of the most popular of lect- 
urers, the gossipy N. P. Willis has given us 
an off-hand sketch which is interesting enough 
to quote. 

EMERSON AS A LECTURER. 

The single look we were enabled to give Mr. Em- 
erson, as the applause announced that he had come 
into the pulpit, revealed to us that he was a man 
we had seen a thousand times, and with whose face 
our memory was famiHar ; though in the sidewalk 
portrait-taking by which we had treasured his phys- 
iognomy there was so Httle resemblance to the 
portrait taken from reading liim, that we should 
never have put the two together, probably, except 

86 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 87 

by personal identification. We remember him per- 
fectly as a boy whom we used to see playing about 
Chauncey Place and Summer Street, — one of those 
pale little moral-sublimes with their shirt-collars 
turned over, who are recognized by Boston school- 
boys as having " fathers that are Unitarians," — and, 
though he came to his first short hair about the time 
that v/e came to our first tail-coat, six or eight years 
behind us, we have never lost sight of him. In the 
visits we have made to Boston of late years, we have 
seen him in the street and remembered having al- 
ways seen him as a boy — very little suspecting that 
there walked, in a form long familiar, the deity of 
an intellectual altar upon which, at that moment, 
burned a fire in our bosom. 

Emerson's voice is up to his reputation. It has 
a curious contradiction, which we tried in vain to 
analyze satisfactorily, — an outwardly repellent and 
inwardly reverential mingling of qualities which a 
musical composer would despair of blending into 
one. It bespeaks a life that is half contempt, half 
adoring recognition, and very little between. But 
it is noble altogether. And what seems strange is 
to hear such a voice proceeding from such a body. 
It is a voice with shoulders in it which he has not 
— with lungs in it far larger than his — with a walk 
in it which the public never see — with a fist in it 
which his own hand never gave him the model for 
— and with a gentleman in it which his parochial 



88 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

and " bare-necessaries-of-life " sort of exterior 
give no other betrayal of. We can imagine noth- 
ing in nature (which seems, too, to have a type for 
every thing) like the want of correspondence be- 
tween the Emerson that goes in at the eye and the 
Emerson that goes in at the ear. We speak with- 
out having had an opportunity to study his face, — 
acquaintance with features, as everybody knows, 
being like the peeling of an artichoke, and the core 
of a face, to those who know it, being very unlike 
the eight or ten outside folds that stop the eye in the 
beginning. But a heavy and vase-like blossom of a 
magnolia, with fragrance enough to perfume a whole 
wilderness, which should be lifted by a whirlwind 
and dropped into a branch of an aspen, would not 
seem more as if it never could have grown there, 
than Emerson's voice seems inspired and foreign to 
his visible and natural body. Indeed (to use one 
of his own similitudes), his body seems "never to 
have broken the umbilical cord " which held it to 
Boston, while his soul has sprung to the adult stature 
of a child of the universe, and his voice is the ut- 
terance of the soul only. It is one of his fine re- 
marks, that "it makes a great difference to the 
force of any sentence whether a man is behind it or 
no " ; but without his voice to make the ear stand 
surety for his value, the eye would look for the 
first time on Emerson and protest his draft on 
admiration, as not " i^ayable at sight." 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 89 

This is essentially what Carlyle would have 
called the ''flunky" view of Emerson, particu- 
larly in the denial to the stately and noble- 
looking philosopher of the outward charac- 
teristics of a gentleman. The gentlemanly 
characteristics, in Mr. Willis' eye, were those 
externals which result from, the combined 
efforts of that noble triumvirate, the tailor, the 
hair-dresser, and the dancing-master. It is 
pleasant, therefore, to turn to another chroni- 
cler, who, although she confesses herself baffled 
in her attempt to reach the inner penetralia of 
Emerson's mind, still has a deep and even 
awed appreciation of some of his finest 
traits. Miss Frederika Bremer in her visit to 
the United States was thrown into frequent 
contact with the Concord sage, and she thus 
jots down her impressions in her home-bound 
letters. 

MISS Bremer's visits to emerson. 

Decembe7' 2, 1849. — Emerson came to meet lis, 
walking down the little avenue of spruce firs wlu'ch 
leads from his house, bareheaded amid the falling 
snow. He is a quiet, nobly grave figure, his com- 
plexion pale, with strongly marked features and 
dark hair. He seemed to me a younger man, but 
less handsome, than I had imagined ; his exterior 



90 RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 

not so fascinating, but more significant. He occu- 
pied himself with us, however, and with me in par- 
ticular, as a lady and a foreigner, kindly and agree- 
ably. He is a very peculiar character, but too cold 
and hypercritical to please me entirely ; a strong 
clear eye, always looking out for an ideal which he 
never finds realized on earth ; discovering wants, 
shortcomings, imperfections ; and too strong and 
healthy himself to understand other people's weak- 
nesses and sufferings, for he even despises suffering 
as a weakness unworthy of higher natures. This 
singularity of character leads one to suppose that 
he has never been ill ; sorrows, however, he has had, 
and has felt them deeply, as some of his most beau- 
tiful poems prove ; nevertheless, he has only al- 
lowed himself to be bowed for a short time by these 
griefs, — the death of two beautiful and beloved 
brothers, as well as of a beautiful little boy, his 
eldest son. He has also lost his first wife, after 
having been married scarcely a year. 

Emerson is now married for the second time, and 
has three children. His pretty little boy, the young- 
est of his children, seems to be, in particular, dear 
to him. Mrs. Emerson has beautiful eyes, full of 
feeling, but she appears delicate, and is in charac- 
ter very different from her husband. He interested 
me without warming me. That critical crystalline 
and cold nature may be very estimable, quite 
healthy, and, in its way, beneficial for those who 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 9 1 

possess it, and also for others who allow themselves 
to be measured and criticised by it ; but for me 
— David's heart with David's songs ! 

I shall return to this home in consequence of a 
very kind invitation to do so from Emerson and his 
wife, and in order that I may see more of this 
sphinx-like individual. 

Ja7iuary 22, 1850. — I must now tell you about 
Concord and the sphinx in Concord, Waldo Emer- 
son, because I went to Concord five days ago, at- 
tended by — himself. During the four days that I 
remained in Emerson's house I had a real enjoy- 
ment in the study of this strong, noble, eagle-like 
nature. Any near approximation was, as it were, 
imperfect, because our characters and views are 
fundamentally dissimilar, and that secret antago- 
nism which exists in me toward him, spite of my 
admiration, would at times awake, and this easily 
called forth his icy-alp nature, repulsive and chill- 
ing. But this is not the original nature of the man; 
he does not rightly thrive in it, and he gladly 
throws it off, if he can, and is much happier, as one 
can see, in a mild and sunny atmosphere, where the 
natural beauty of his being may breathe freely and 
expand into blossom, touched by that of others as 
by a living breeze. I enjoyed the contemplation 
of him in his demeanor, his expression, his mode of 
talking, and his every-day life, as I enjoy contem- 
plating the calm flow of a river bearing along, and 



92 RALPH WALDO EIvIERSON. 

between flowery shores, large and small vessels — as 
I love to see the eagle circling in the clouds, resting 
upon them and its pinions. In this calm elevation 
Emerson allows nothing to reach him, neither great 
nor small, neither prosperity nor adversity. 

Pantheistic as Emerson is in his philosophy, in 
the moral view with which he regards the world 
and life he is in a high degree pure, noble, and se- 
vere, demanding as much from himself as he de- 
mands from others. His words are severe, his 
judgment often keen and merciless, but his de- 
meanor is alike noble and pleasing, and his voice 
beautiful. One may quarrel with Emerson's 
thoughts, with his judgment, but not with himself. 
That which struck me most, as distinguishing him 
from most other human beings, is nobility. He is 
a born nobleman, I have seen before two other 
men born with this stamp upon them. Em^erson is 
the third who has it, and perhaps in a yet higher 
degree. And added thereto that deep intonation 
of voice, that expression, so mild yet so elevated at 
the same time. I could not but think of Maria 
Lowell's words, '' If he merely mentions my name I 
feel myself ennobled." 

I said to an amiable woman, a sincere friend of 
Emerson's, and one who, at the same time, is pos- 
sessed of a deeply religious mind, " How can you 
love him so deeply, when he does not love nor put 
faith in the Highest, which we love ? " 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 93 

"He 4s so faultless," replied she; "and then he 
is lovely ! " 

Lovable he is, also, as one sees him in his home 
and amid his domestic relations. But you shall 
hear more about him when we meet, and you shall 
see his strong beautiful head in my album, among 
many American acquaintance. I feel that my in- 
tercourse with him will leave a deep trace on my 
soul. 

Better than either of the above, however, be- 
cause from the pen of a deeper thinker and a 
broader-minded man, is the following descrip- 
tion of Emerson in Hawthorne's '" Mosses from 
an Old Manse." 

Hawthorne's description of emerson. 

Were I to adopt a pet theory, as so many people 
do, and fondle it in my embraces to the exclusion 
of all others, it would be that the great want which 
mankind labors under at this present period is 
sleep. The world should recline its vast head on 
the first convenient pillow, and take an age-long 
nap. It has gone distracted through a morbid 
activity, and, while preternaturally wide awake, is 
nevertheless tormented by visions which seem real 
to it now, but would assume their true aspect and 
character were all things once set right by an inter- 
val of sound repose. This is the only method cf 



94 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

getting rid of old delusions and avoiding new ones ; 
of regenerating our race, so that it might in due 
time awake as an infant out of dewy slumber ; of 
restoring to us the simple perception of what is 
right, and the single-hearted desire to achieve it, 
both of which have long been lost in consequence 
of this weary activity of brain and torpor or pas- 
sion of the heart that now afnict the universe. 
Stimulants, the only mode of treatment hitherto 
attempted, cannot quell the disease ; they do but 
heighten the delirium. 

Let not the above paragraph ever be quoted 
against the author ; for, though tinctured with its 
modicum of truth, it is the result and expression of 
what he knew, while he was writing, to be but a dis- 
torted survey of the state and prospects of mankind. 
There were circumstances around me which made it 
difficult to view the world precisely as it exists; for, 
severe and sober as was the Old Manse, it was 
necessary to go but a little beyond its threshold be- 
fore meeting with stranger moral shapes of men than 
might have been encountered elsewhere in a circuit 
of a thousand miles. 

These hobgoblins of flesh and blood were at- 
tracted thither by the wide-spreading influence of a 
great original thinker, v/ho had his earthly abode at 
the opposite extremity of our village. His mind 
acted upon other minds of a certain constitution 
with wonderful magnetism, and drew many men 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 95 

upon long pilgrimages to speak with him face to 
face. Young visionaries — to whom just so much 
of insight had been imparted as to make life all a 
labyrinth around them — came to seek the clew that 
should guide them out of their self-involved bewil- 
derment. Gray-headed theorists — whose systems, 
at first air, had finally imprisoned them in an iron 
framework — travelled painfully to his door, not to 
ask deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into 
their own thraldom. People that had lighted upon 
a new thought, or a thought that they fancied new, 
came to Emerson, as the finder of a glittering gem 
hastens to a lapidary, to ascertain its quality and 
value. Uncertain, troubled, earnest wanderers 
through the midnight of the moral world beheld 
his intellectual fire as a beacon burning on a hill- 
top, and, climbing the difficult ascent, looked forth 
into the surrounding obscurity more hopefully than 
hitherto. The light revealed objects unseen before 
— mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses of a creation 
among the chaos ; but also, as was unavoidable, it 
attracted bats and owls and the whole host of 
night-birds, which flapped their dusky wings against 
the gazer's eyes, and sometimes were mistaken for 
fowls of angelic feather. Such delusions always 
hover nigh whenever a beacon-fire of truth is 
kindled. 

For myself, there had been epochs of my life 
when I, too, might have asked of this prophet the 



96 RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 

master-word that should solve me the riddle of the 
universe, but now, being happy, I felt that there 
were no questions to be put, and therefore admired 
Emerson as a poet of deep beauty and austere ten- 
derness, but sought nothing from him as a philoso- 
pher... It was good, nevertheless, to meet him in the 
wood-paths, or sometimes in our avenue, with that 
pure intellectual gleam diffused about his presence 
like the garment of a shining one ; and he so 
quiet, so simple, so without pretension, encounter- 
ing each man alive, as if expecting to receive more 
than he could impartA And, in truth, the heart of 
many an ordinary rffan has, perchance, inscriptions 
which he could not read. , But it was impossible 
to dwell in his vicinity without inhaling more or 
less the mountain atmosphere of his lofty thought, 
which, in the brains of some people, wrought a 
singular giddiness — new truth being as heavy as 
new wine. Never v/as a poor little country vil- 
lage infested with such a variety of queer, strangely 
dressed, oddly behaved mortals, most of whom 
took it upon themselves to be important agents of 
the world's destiny, yet were simply bores of a 
very intense water. Such, I imagine, is the invari- 
able character of persons who crowd so closely upon 
an original thinker as to draw in his unuttered 
breath and thus become imbued with a false origi- 
nality. This triteness of novelty is enough to make 
any man of common sense blaspheme at all ideas of 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 97 

less than a century's standing, and pray that the 
world may be petrified and rendered immovable 
in precisely the worst moral and physical state that 
it ever yet arrived at, rather than be benefited by 
such schemes of such philosophers. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

A conversation with Bryant by Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith— Haw- 
thorne's record of a visit from Bryant — Various anecdotes-John 
Bigelow's reminiscences. 

" It is a fine sight," says Mrs. Elizabeth 
Oakes Smith in an old number of Appleto7is 
Monthly, " a man full of years, clear in mind, 
sober in judgment, refined in taste, and hand- 
some in person. Such is Mr. Bryant, Nestor 
among the poets, who has not yet survived his 
fame — hardly ever received, as yet, his full 
meed of praise. I remember once to have 
been at a lecture where Mr. Bryant sat several 
seats in front of me, and his finely-shaped and 
ample-sized head was especially noticeable, 
even compared with the mass of intelligent 
heads by which he was surrounded. Heads 
grow to a late period in life, unless people 
dwindle, peak, and pine, and stint themselves 
by frivolous or unworthy habits or pursuits. 

98 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 99 

The observer of Bryant's capacious skull and 
most refined expression of face cannot fail to 
read therein the history of a noble manhood.*' 
Mrs. Smith then goe£ on to give the follow- 
ing record of 

A CONVERSATION WITH BRYANT. 

There is that in the most ordinary utterances of 
genius that fixes itself upon the mind, and will not 
be erased ; and men of genius talk at a sort of 
peril. I believe I can recall every word of the con- 
versations of Mr. Bryant with me, and I do not be- 
lieve he ever uttered one that ought to be forgot- 
ten. He is by no means a loquacious man, — his 
paragraphs are all fastidiously finished, and would 
read well in print. He is apt to be electric in socie- 
ty, and talks with those whom he most fancies, who 
are sure to be unpretentious, real, and distinctive 
in character. 

'' How is it you can make Mr. Bryant talk ? " 
asked Mrs. E one evening. 

" Simply by not trying to be smart, and making 
no effort to talk well," was the reply. 

Margaret Fuller, Mr. Bryant, and many others, 
were at a party at Marcus and Rebecca Spring's, 
whose genial hospitality made their home a favorite 
place of resort. It was a chill November evening, 
and, as the wind scattered the foliage against the 



100 V/ILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

lattice, Mrs. E — ■ — repeated, looking at Mr. Bry- 
ant : 

' ' The melancholy days are come, 
The saddest of the year." 

Mr. Bryant bowed slightly, and she passed on ; 
when the former turned his dark eyes full upon me, 
and said, in his most cold and quiet manner : 

" It is enough to make an author distrust his own 
productions to hea,r one, not by any means his best, 
quoted at the expense of ail others." 

" I should not think so ; it only proves that the 
one in question has touched the common thought, 
while his other productions may be beyond it." 

" That is a pleasant view most certainly, but still 
the doubt remains." 

" I should not think the author of ' Thanatopsis ' 
would be troubled with many doubts." 

"Ah ! there the same doubt recurs. A poem writ- 
ten so early in life, and quoted, as you do now, as 
an author's best, leaves a doubt of mental progress, 
painful to reflect upon." 

This was said with more feeling than I had an» 
ticipated from that ordinarily undemonstrative 
speaker. One might have supposed it akin to those 
courteous tactics by which accomplished men, to 
use a vulgar phrase, " fish for a compliment" from 
a woman known to be no flatterer, and not incapa- 
ble of judgment ; but Mr. Bryant is not in the least 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. lOI 

vain, and has a manly appreciation of his own abili- 
ties. I replied : 

" I do not quite see the subject in the light you 
place it. A poet, if truly such, must have his hours 
of inspiration, when his thought and expression 
transcend himself, and utter at a breath what it 
will take him years to reach by any deliberate men- 
tal process." 

Mr. Bryant's fine eyes kindled as he replied : 
" That is a pleasant solution, and the poet ought to 
be reconciled." 

Mr. Bryant is tall and slender, his general appear- 
ance indicating high and refined nervous action. 
His well-shaped head is covered with soft, wavy 
hair, which is now of a silvery whiteness. 

In his Italian Note-Books, Hawthorne makes 
record of a visit paid him by Bryant in Flor- 
ence. 

Hawthorne's sketch of bryant. 

I never saw him but once before [says Hawthorne], 
and that was at the door of our little red cottage in 
Lenox ; he sitting in a wagon with one or two of 
the Sedgwicks, merely exchanging a greeting with 
me from under the brim of his straw hat, and driv- 
ing on. He presented himself now with a long 
white beard, such as a palmer might have worn as 
the growth of his long pilgrimages ; a brow almost 



I02 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 

entirely bald, and what hair he had quite heavy ; 
a forehead impending, yet not massive ; dark bushy 
eyebrows, and keen eyes, without much softness in 
them ; a dark and sallow complexion ; a slender figure, 
bent a little with age, but at once alert and infirm. 
It surprised me to see him so venerable, for as poets 
are Apollo's kinsmen, we are inclined to attribute to 
them his enviable quality of never growing old. 
There was a weary look in his face, as if he were 
tired of seeing things and doing things, though with 
certainly enough still to see and do, if need were. 
My family gathered about him, and he conversed 
with great readiness and simplicity about his travels, 
and whatever other subject came up ; telling us that 
he had been abroad five times, and was now getting 
a little homesick, and had no more eagerness for 
sights, though his " gals " (as he called his daugh- 
ters and another young lady) dragged him out to 
see the wonders of Rome again. His manners and 
whole aspect are very particularly plain, though not 
affectedly so ; but it seems as if in the decline of 
life and the security of his position he had put off 
whatever artificial polish he may have heretofore had, 
and resumed the simpler habits and deportment of 
his early New England breeding. Not but what 
you discover, nevertheless, that he is a man of re- 
finement, who has seen the world and is well aware 
of his own place in it. He uttered fieither passion 
nor poetry, but excellent good sense, and accurate 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. IO3 

information on whatever subject transpired ; a very 
pleasant man to associate with, but rather cold, I 
should imagine if one should seek to touch his heart 
with one's own. He shook hands kindly all round, 
but not with any warmth of grip ; although the ease 
of his deportment had put us all on sociable terms 
with him. 

Since the death of Bryant a number of his 
acquaintances have given us their reminis- 
cences of the poet, which seem to confirm the 
impression he made upon Hawthorne. His 
manner was one of unfailing kindness and 
courtesy, his relations with those around him 
were of the pleasantest description, but he was 
of too reserved a nature for any intimate com- 
panionship. Still, his reserve, we are told, was 
rather that of shy modesty than of conscious 
worth. His intercourse with his associates in 
the office of the Evening Post was always 
singularly frank and easy. He even avoided 
that appearance of superior authority which is 
almost inseparable from the exercise of control 
over the working of a newspaper staff. His 
few and infrequent commands were requests 
always, framed in the language and uttered in 
the tone of one who asks a favor, not of one 
who merely wishes to disguise a command. 



104 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Notwithstanding his age and his chiefship in 
the ofifice, he never sent for any member of his 
staff to come to him ; if he had aught to say 
he went to the person to whom he wished to 
say it. "He would pass through the editorial 
rooms with a cheery ' good morning ' ; he would 
sit down by one's desk and talk if there was 
aught to talk about ; or, if asked a question 
while passing, would stand while answering it, 
and frequently would relate some anecdote 
suggested by the question, or offer some apt 
quotation to illustrate the subject under dis- 
cussion." His tenderness of the feelings of 
others and his earnest desire always to avoid 
the giving of unnecessary pain, were very 
marked. *' Soon after I began to do the duties 
of literary editor," continues an associate, 
" Mr, Bryant, who was reading a review of a 
little book of wretchedly halting verse, said to 
me : * I wish you would deal very gently with 
poets, especially the weaker ones.' Later, I 
had a very bad case of poetic idiocy to deal 
with, and as Mr. Bryant happened to come 
into my room while I was debating the matter 
in my mind, I said to him that I v/as embar- 
rassed by his injunction to deal gently with 
poets, and pointed out to him the utter impos- 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYAiYT. 10 = 



sibility of finding any thing to praise or lightly 
to condemn in tlie book before me. After I 
had read some of its stanzas to him, he an- 
swered : ' No, you can't praise it, of course ; it 
won't do to lie about it, but' — turning the 
volume in his hand and inspecting it — ' you 
might say that the binding is securely put on, 
and that — well, the binder has planed the 
edges pretty sm.ooth.' " 

In an address delivered before the Century 
Club, the Hon. John Bigelow, who was a per- 
sonal friend of the poet, gives the following 

REMINISCENCES OF BRYANT. 

Plutarch tells us of a Roman judge refusing to act 
upon the testimony of a single witness in a case 
where the law required the testimony of two wit- 
nesses. " No," said the judge, " not even if Cato 
himself were the witness." This country has prob- 
ably produced no person to whose truthfulness a 
similar homage from the bench would seem less in- 
appropriate than to Bryant. A statement from him 
required no sanction. His profound conscientious- 
ness, too, invested his character with an atmosphere 
in which no unworthy or degrading purpose could 
breathe or exist for a moment. And here lay the 
secret of a personal dignity which with him was 
more than majestic. Though v;ith his friends one 



I06 WILLIAM CULL EN BRYANT. 

of the most genial and to all the world the most 
unpretending of men, one would as soon think of 
taking a liberty with the Pope as with Bryant. 

The impression he left upon strangers when first 
presented to him was apt to be chiUing. Though 
never unkind, his manner in such cases was not re- 
sponsive. His greetings were discouraging, especially 
to the numbers whose admiration for him had been 
feeding for years upon an ideal shaped from his works, 
and who regarded an introduction to him as an epoch 
in their lives. This apparent want of cordiality did 
not result from insensibility, nor wholly from his 
constitutional aversion to be lionized, but rather 
from an unwillingness to express in any way a 
greater degree of interest than he felt. As soon 
as acquaintance ripened a feeling of greater cor- 
diality, his manner betrayed it, but always within 
the limits of the strictest truthfulness. He spoke 
and lived 

** As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye," 

and expecting to account for every word he uttered. 
Whoever will adopt the same lofty rule in his 
intercourse with the world, will soon find the true 
explanation of much that in Bryant was attributed 
to a cold and unsympathetic treatment. He took 
little note of any but moral distinctions among men. 
Mere worldly rank impressed him less than almost 
any man I ever knew. I was once his guest at Roslyn 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 10/ 

with a foreigner of some distinction, who nt the close 
of the first repast after our arrival, presumed upon 
the privilege accorded to persons of his rank at 
home to rise first and dismiss the table. Mr. Bryant 
joined me on our way to the parlor, and with an 
expression of undisguised astonishment asked nie, 
*' Did you see that ? " I replied that I did, and 
with a view of extenuating the gentleman's offense 
as much as I could, said that he evidently thought 
he only was exercising one of the recognized pre- 
rogatives of his order. '' Well," he said, " he will 
have no opportunity of repeating it here " ; and he 
was as good as his word, for during the remainder 
of our sojourn, no one was left in doubt whose pre- 
rogative it was in that house to dismiss the table. 
Some weeks later he alluded to this incident and 
quoted, from a conversation he had once held with 
Fenimore Cooper, his strictures upon this exasper- 
ating assumption of the titled classes in some com- 
munities of the Old World. He was willing that 
others should adopt any standard that pleased them 
best, by which to rate their fellows, himself included, 
but he would not accept directly or indirectly for 
himself any other standard than that v/hich, so far 
as he knew, his Maker would apply. 

As Bryant, from the day he embarked in journal- 
ism, continued a journalist until the close of his life, 
from a yet earlier period of his life to its close he 
never ceased to be a poet ; reminding us of Cowley's 



I08 WILLIAM CULLEA ' BR VA X 7\ 

remark that it is seldom seen that the poet dies be- 
fore the man. But Bryant never confounded the 
two vocations in any way, or allowed either to in- 
terfere to any appreciable extent with the other. 
They constituted tv/o separate and distinct currents 
of intellectual life, one running through the other if 
you please, but never mixing with it, as the Gulf 
Stream winds its way through the broad Atlantic, 
though always distinguished from it by its higher 
temperature. None of the more vulgar considera- 
tions of authorshi}) ever operated upon his muse so 
far as I was ever able to discern. He never sang 
for money ; neither did he use his poetical gifts for 
worldly or professional ends. He used his feet for 
walking and he used his wings for flying, but he 
never attempted to fly v/ith his feet or to run with 
his wings. He earned his bread and he fought the 
battle of life with his journal, but he made no secret 
of the fact that he looked to his verses for the per- 
petuation of his name ; when he put on his singing 
robes he practically withdrew from the world and 
went up into a high mountain, where the din and 
clamor of professional life, in which he habitually 
dwelt, was inaudible. On those occasions 

" His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." 

When the semi-centennial anniversary of the 
Evening Post was approaching, I proposed to him 
to prepare for its columns a sketch of its career. 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. IO9 

He cheerfully accepted the task, and in order that 
he might be free from interruption, I recommended 
him to go down to his country-home at Roslyn and 
remain there until it was finished, and let me send 
him there such of the files of the paper as he might 
have occasion to consult. He rejected the proposal 
as abruptly as if I had asked him to offer sacrifices 
to Apollo. He would allow no such work to follow 
him there. Not even the shadow of his business 
must fall upon the consecrated haunts of his muse. 
He rarely brought or sent any thing from the coun- 
try for the Evening Post ; but if he did, it was easy 
to detect in the character of the fish that they had 
been caught in strange waters. This separation of 
his professional from his poetical life must be taken 
into account in any effort to explain the uniform 
esteem in which he was always held as a poet by his 
country-people, while, not unfrequently, one of the 
least popular of journalists. I have heard his verses 
quoted in public meetings, during the earlier stages 
of the anti-slavery controversy, where if he had ap- 
peared in person he could have scarcely escaped 
outrage. No poet of eminence probably had less 
of the benefit of adverse criticism, while as a jour- 
nalist he was almost always embattled. 

I once asked him how it happened that in a pro- 
fession generally so fatal to the higher qualities of 
style, because of the haste in which much of its work 
has to be done, he had managed for more than half 



no WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

a century to preserve his style in such purity and 
perfection. " If my style has fewer defects than you 
expect," he said, " it is for the reason, I suppose, 
which Dr. Johnson gave Boswell for conversing so 
well : I always write my best." " But," I said, 
" there are daily emercfcncies when there is no time 
to choose words and be dainty, when the alternative 
is a hasty article or none at all." " I would sooner 
the paper would go to press without an editorial ar- 
ticle than send to the printer one I was not satisfied 
with," was his reply. 

Pope excused himself to one of his correspond- 
ents for neglect of style and method in his familiar 
letters, on the ground that he was writing to a friend. 
I will venture to say that Bryant never offered or 
needed any such excuse for himself, and that he 
never wrote a note to his grocer or butcher that, 
in so far as its form and expression were con- 
cerned, was not as faultless as if it had been written 
for the press. 

Dr. Johnson makes it a reproach to Pope that he 
wrote his translation of the Iliad upon the backs of 
old letters. Mr. Bryant rarely wrote for the Evening 
Post upon any thing else, not, as Johnson intimated 
in the case of Pope, from a penny-wise and pound- 
foolish parsimony, but from a principle which was 
one of the logical consequences of his theory of 
human responsibility. His table was filled with old 
letters on their way to the paper-mill. They were 



WILLIAM CULLEN BR YANT. 1 1 1 

as serviceable for his editorial work as if they v/ere 
fresh from it. He used them because he believed 
that everybody in the world was made the poorer 
by every thing that is wasted, and no one so much 
as he who wastes, for he experiences a waste of 
character as well as of property. 

It could be said of Bryant, if of any man, that he 
had no vices. Neither had he any time-wasting 
habits. He never consciously indulged any appetite 
or taste to the prejudice of his health or of any duty. 
Without being in the least an ascetic, or foregoing 
any of the legitimate pleasures of the table, he had 
occasion to lose no time in repairing forces exhausted 
by any species of excess. I could not conceive of 
his indulging in any thing which he even suspected 
might impair his mental, moral, or physical efficiency, 
merely because it gave a transient gratification. 
He never seemed to exercise self-denial, so com- 
pletely had it become the law of his life to do what 
appeared to him best to be done. This was the 
secret of his almost miraculous health, which pre- 
served him in the full enjoyment of all his faculties 
up to his last illness, and which enabled him, after 
he was seventy years of age, to associate his name 
imperishably with the greatest of epic poets, by the 
least imperfect English translation of the Iliad and 
Odyssey that has yet been made. 

I am warranted in saying that, until the distress- 
ing accident which terminated his days, he was 



112 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 

never disabled by sickness within the memory of 
any person now living. 

' ' In years he seemed but not impaired by years. " 

His health responded so faithfully to the inexo- 
rable loyalty of his character, as to go far towards 
justifying Buffon's theory, that the normal life of 
man is a hundred years, and that it is due not to 
the use but to the abuse of his organization, if he 
finds an earlier grave. 

Meeting him some years ago and after a some- 
what prolonged separation, I asked him particularly 
about his health. He said it was so perfect he 
hardly dared to speak of it. He was not conscious 
from one week to another, he said, of a physical 
sensation that he would have different ; and was 
forgetting that he was liable to disease and decay. 
I asked him for his secret. He replied that he did 
not know that there was any secret about it, but he 
supposed he owed much of his health to a habit 
formed in early life, of devoting the first hour and a 
half or two hours after leaving his bed in the morn- 
ing, to moderate gymnastic exercise, after which he 
took a bath and a light breakfast, consisting usually 
of milk with some kind of cereal food and fruit, but 
no meat. At dinner he ate pretty much what other 
people ate. His evening meal, when he did not 
dine late, was much the same as his breakfast. He 
drank sparingly of any thing stronger than water. 



WILLIAM CULL EN BR YANT. I I 3 

He avoided all condiments, he used neither tea nor 
coffee, and held tobacco in abhorrence. I re- 
member the time when he could not stay in a room 
infected with the fumes of tobacco, though later in 
life he became less sensitive to its effects. He 
rarely allowed himself to be out of bed after ten at 
night, or in bed after five in the morning. To these 
habits and regimen he said he attributed in a great 
measure his exceptionally good health. Not many 
weeks before his death, and when recovering from 
a slight indisposition which he had been describing 
to me (he was then approaching his eighty-fourth 
year), I said : " I presume you have reduced your 
allowance of morning gymnastics ? " '' Not the 
width of your thumb-nail," was his prompt reply. 
"What," said I, "do you manage still 'to put in' 
your hour and a half every morning .'' " " Yes," he 
replied, " and sometimes more ; frequently more." 
Bryant had a marvellous memory. His famili- 
arity with the English poets was such that when at 
sea, where he was always too ill to read much, 
he would beguile the time by reciting page after 
page from favorite poems. He assured me that, 
however long the voyage, he had never exhausted 
his resources. I once proposed to send for a copy 
of a magazine in which a new poem of his was an- 
nounced to appear, " You need not send for it," 
said he : " I can give it to you." " Then you have 
a copy with you .^" said I. " No," he replied, " but 



1 14 WILLIAM CULLEN BR YANT. 

I can recall it," and thereupon proceeded immedi- 
ately to write it out. I congratulated him upon 
having such a faithful memory. '/ If allowed a 
little time," he replied, " I could recall every line of 
poetry I have ever written." Yet he rarely quoted, 
and never in a foreign tongue. This is the more 
noticeable, as he was scarcely less familiar with the 
languages and literatures of Germany, France, and 
Spain, of ancient and modern Greece, and of 
ancient and modern Rome, than with that of his 
own country, and he spoke all of those that are now 
classed among the living languages, except the 
modern Greek, with considerable facility and sur- 
prising correctness. 

He rated his memory at its true value and never 
abused it. It was a blooded steed which he never 
degraded to the uses of a pack-horse. Hence he 
was fastidious about his reading as about his 
company, believing there v/as no worse thief than a 
bad book ; but he never tired of writers who have 
best stood the test of time. He had little taste for 
historical reading. Indeed, the habits of his mind 
were not at all in sympathy with the inductive 
method of reaching new truths or propagating them. 
He often deplored the increasing neglect of the old 
English classics, which our modern facilities for 
printing were displacing. Johnson's Lives of the 
Poets was one of his favorite books. Pope, who 
has educated more poets in the art of verse-making 



WILLIAM CULLEN BR YANT. 1 1 5 

than any other modern author, was, from his early- 
youth, his pocket companion. I think he had 
studied him more carefully than any other English 
writer, and was specially impressed by his wit. 

One day as I was looking over the books on the 
shelves of his library at Roslyn, he called my atten- 
tion to his position. " There," said he, " I have 
fallen quite accidentally into the precise attitude in 
which Pope is commonly represented, with his 
forehead resting on his fingers." He then got up 
to look for an illustration among his books. He 
did not find what he sought, but he brought two 
other editions, each representing Pope with an 
abundance of hair on his head, one an old folio 
containing a collection of Pope's verses written 
before he was twenty-five years of age. 

I asked him if he had seen the new edition of 
Pope's works which Elwin was editing. He said he 
had not, nor heard of it. I then told him that 
Elwin left Pope scarcely a single estimable per- 
sonal quality, and had stripped him of a good share 
of the literary laurels which he had hitherto worn 
in peace. He promptly said that he did not care 
to see it ; that he was not disposed to trust such a 
judgment, however ingeniously defended. He then 
quoted Young's lines on Pope, " Sweet as his own 
Homer, his life melodious as his verse." " That," said 
he, "is the judgment of a contemporary." He then 
read some lines from other poets in farther defence 



Il6 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

of his favorite. He was unwilling to have his ideal 
of Pope disturbed, and when I suggested that he 
should get Elwin, he said : " No, I want no better 
edition than Warburton's, the edition that was in 
my father's library, and which I read when a boy." 
Bryant's admiration of Pope is the more remarkable, 
as two characters more unlike could not be readily 
imagined. 

No prose writer since Queen Anne's period re- 
ceived from him such frequent commendation as 
Southey, whose prose seemed to have impressed 
him more than his poetry. He shared little of the 
popular enthusiasm for Macaulay. I don't remem- 
ber to have heard him ever cite a line or an opinion 
of Byron, who was never one of his favorites. 
Some twenty-five or thirty years ago a person claim- 
ing to be a son of the poet appeared in New York 
with some poems and letters which he said had 
ht^w written and given him by Byron, and for which 
he sought to find a market among our publishers. 
I spoke of the matter one day to Bryant, and his re- 
ply surpised me more than it v/ould have done after 
my opinions of Byron were more settled. Looking 
up with an expression which implied more than he 
uttered, he said, " I think we have poems enough of 
Byron already." 

Mr. Bryant used to say that a gentleman should 
never talk of his love-affairs or of his religion. So 
far as I know, he practiced as he preached. There 



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 11/ 

was no subject which for many years appeared to 
occupy more of his thought than religion, none 
about which he seemed more wilHng to listen, but 
of his own spiritual experiences he was singularly 
reticent. I do not remember to have ever heard 
him define his creed upon any point of theology, or 
give utterance to a single dogma ; neither do I be- 
lieve such an utterance can be found in any of his 
writings ;. though so profound were his religious feel- 
ings and convictions, that they found expression in 
a series of exquisitely devotional hymns, which I 
trust may some day be given to the public. In 
matters of religion, his modesty was as conspicuous 
as in every thing else ; he was never betrayed into 
citing his own example or his own opinions as an 
autliority to any one else. 

But it may be asked, had this " mofistrujn perfec- 
tionis " no faults ? Bryant was born to the same 
sinful inheritance as the rest of us ; but I can say of 
him with perfect truth, that with his faults he was 
always at war. No one better than he knew the 
enemies with which the human heart is always be- 
sieged, — the enemies of his own household ; and few 
men ever fought them more valiantly, more persist- 
ently, or more successfully. Those who only knew 
him in his later years would scarcely believe that 
he had been endowed by nature with a very quick 
and passionate temper. He never entirely over- 
came it, but he held every impulse of his nature to 



1 1 8 WILLIAM CULLEN BR YANT. 

such a rigorous accountability, that few have ever 
suspected the struggles with which he purchased 
the self-control which constituted one of the con- 
spicuous graces of his character. Bryant had his 
faults, but he made of them agents of purification. 
He learned from them humility and faith, a wise 
distrust of himself, and an unfaltering trust in Him 
through whose aid he was strengthened to keep 
them in abeyance. By God's help he converted the 
tears of his angels into pearls. 

It was this constant and successful warfare upon 
every unworthy and degrading propensity that 
sought an asylum in his heart, that made him such 
a moral force in the country, that invested any occa- 
sion to which he lent his presence with an especial 
dignity, that gave to his personal example a pecul- 
iar power and authority. No one could be much 
in the society of Bryant without feeling more re- 
spect for himself, without being conscious that his 
better nature had been awakened to a higher activ- 
ity, without an increased reluctance to say or do 
any thing which Bryant himself under similar cir- 
cumstances would probably not have said or done. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LONGFELLOW AND WHITTIER. 

Longfellow at Harvard, reminiscences of an old pupil — A day at his 
house in Cambridge — A conversation concerning Evangeline and 
other poems — Pen pictures of Whittier. 

In a recent number of the Christiayi Union^ 
Mr. Edward Everett Hale contributes the fol- 
lowing interesting reminiscences of Longfel- 
low's manner and bearing in the early days 
when he held the chair of languages in Har- 
vard University. 

REMINISCENCES OF LONGFELLOW AS A TEACHER BY 
AN OLD PUPIL. 

I was SO fortunate as to be in the first " section " 
which Mr. Longfellow instructed personally when he 
came to Cambridge in 1836. Perhaps I best illustrate 
the method of his instruction when I say that I 
think every man in that section would now say 
that he was on intimate terms with Mr. Longfellow. 
We are all near sixty now, but I think that every 

119 



I20 LONGFELLOW AND WHIT TIER, 

one of the section would expect td have Mr. Long- 
fellow recognize him, and would enter into familiar 
talk with him if they met. From the first, he chose 
to take with us the relation of a personal friend a 
few years older than we were. 

As it happened, the regular recitation rooms of 
the college were all in use, and indeed I think he 
was hardly expected to teach any language at all. 
He was to oversee the department and to lecture. 
But he seemed to teach us German for the love of 
it ; I know I thought he did, and, till now, it has 
never occurred to me to ask whether it were a part 
of his regular duty. Anyway, v/e did not meet him 
in one of the rather dingy '' recitation rooms," but 
in a sort of parlor, carpeted, hung with pictures, and 
otherwise handsomely furnished, which v/as, I be- 
lieve, called "The Corporation Pvoom." We sat 
round a mahogany table, which was reported to be 
meant for the dinners of the trustees, and the whole 
affair had the aspect of a friendly gathering in a 
private house, in which the study of German was 
the amusement of the occasion. These accidental 
surroundings of the place characterize well enough 
the whole proceeding. 

He began with familiar ballads, read them to us, 
and made us read them to him. Of course we soon 
committed them to memory without meaning to, and 
I think this was probably part of his theory. At 
the same time we were learning the paradigms by 



LONGFELLOW AND WHLTTIER. 121 

rote. But we never studied the grammar except to 
learn them, nor do I know to this hour what are 
the contents of half the pages in the regular German 
grammars. 

This was quite too good to last. For his reguhar 
duty was the oversight of five or more instructors 
who were teaching French, German, Italian, Spanish, 
and Portuguese, to two or three hundred under- 
graduates. All these gentlemen were of European 
birth, and you know how undergraduates are apt to 
fare with such men. Mr. Longfellow had a real ad- 
ministration of the whole department. His title was 
" Smith Professor of Modern Literature," but we 
always called him '^The Head," because he was 
head of the department. We never knev/ when he 
might look in on a recitation and virtually conduct 
it. We were delighted to have him come. Any slip- 
shod work of some poor wretch from France, who 
was tormented by wild-cat sophomores, would be 
m.ade straight and decorous and all right. We all 
knew he was a poet and v/ere proud to have him in 
the college, but at the same tim.e we respected him 
as a man of affairs. 

Besides this he lectured on authors, or more gen- 
eral subjects. I think attendance was voluntary, but 
I know we never missed a lecture. I have full notes 
of his lectures on Dante's " Divina Commedia," 
which confirm my recollections, namely, that he 
read the whole to us in English, and explained what- 



122 LONGFELLOW AND WHITTIER. 

ever he thought needed comment. I have often 
referred to these notes since. And though I sup- 
pose that he included all that he thought worth 
while in his notes to his translation of Dante, I know 
that until that was published I could find no such 
reservoir of comment on the poem. 

Mr. David Macrae, a Scotchman who came 
to this country in 1863, and on his return 
published a book called '' The Americans at 
Home," has this account of a day spent with 
Longfellow at his own house. 

LONGFELLOW AT HOME. 

At Cambridge, a few miles out of Boston, lives 
the poet Longfellow — one of the men in all 
America whom I was most anxious to meet, and to 
whom, before leaving Scotland, I had been pro- 
vided with introductions. How well I remember 
that particular forenoon when I took the Cam.bridge 
horse-cars and drove out along tlie Mount Auburn 
road, feeling as if it were a dream that within half 
an hour I was to see Henry Longfellow face to 
face. At last the conductor stopped to let me out, 
and said, " You take the cross-road here. Mr. 
Longfellow's house is the third to the left." 

I walked down the road very slowly, for anticipa- 
tion is sweet, and one does not like to hurry over a 



LONGFELLOW AND WHLTTLER. 1 23 

joy that can never be had but once. My bosom 
was filled with strange emotion. I was about to 
see the man who had touched the heart of Chris- 
tian humanity with his songs — one who had filled 
my own early life with the music of his dreams. It is 
always sweet to pay homage to the poet, but to few, 
either in the New World or in the Old, could I 
have paid it with so much heart as to Longfellow. 
How pure his influence upon the world had been ! 
How many hearts his " Psalm of Life," his "Evan- 
geline," and his " Excelsior " had kindled with a 
nobler enthusiasm ! How many toilers in the dark 
cells of humanity his " Architects of Fate " had 
awakened to the nobleness and immortality of faith- 
ful work ! Among the mountains of sorrow how 
many melancholy wanderers had he cheered ! 
How many a mother's heart, throbbing with 
anguish over the withered corpse of her child, had 
he comforted with his sweet song of *'The Reaper 
and the Flowers " ! 

The old Craigie House, once the Washington 
headquarters, which had been occupied by Long- 
fellow since 1837, and from which, in 1839, he 
dated his " Hyperion," was now before me, — a 
large white mansion, standing on a gentle eminence, 
partially screened from the Mount Auburn road by 
a grove of elms. A footpath led to it from the 
gate through the gently sloping lawn. Just as I 
reached the door, a short-haired terrier came racing 



124 LONGFELLOW AND WHLTTLER. 

round, and began to jump up to my hand and wrig- 
gle joyfully about my feet. I had only been in a 
minute when Longfellow made his appearance. He 
looked older and more venerable than I had ex- 
pected to find him — his long clustering hair and 
shaggy beard white as snow. I was struck, too, 
with a look of latent sadness in his eyes, — an ex- 
pression which vanishes at times when he is moved 
to laughter, but steals back into the thoughtful eye, 
and into every line of the face, as soon as the pass- 
ing thought is gone. Those lines of Mrs. Brown- 
ing's often occurred to me when I looked at him : 

' ' O sorrowful great gift, 
Conferred on poets, of a twofold life, 
V/hen one life lias been found enough for pain." 

I heard, however, from some of Longfellow's 
friends, that the tragic death of his wife, to whom he 
was devotedly attached, had made a great change in 
his appearance, and brought a shadow over his life 
that nothing had ever been able to drive away. 

The family were at an early dinner, but Longfel- 
low insisted upon my joining them. The Scotch 
terrier went in with us, and was still making demon- 
strations lo attract my attention. 

"That terrier is intensely national," said Longfel- 
low, with a sm.ile. " I never knev/ a Scotchman 
come here but that terrier found him out, and wanted 
to make friends with him." 



LONGFELLOW AND WHITTIER. 1 25 

After dinner he took me to his study, wheeled a 
big arm-chair for me to the fireside, and seating him- 
self in another, with a cigar, began to ask about his 
literary friends in Scotland. He spoke of Alexan- 
der Smith and his "City Poems," and of Gilfillan's 
early recognition of their author's genius, and ex- 
pressed deep regret at Smith's premature death. 
Aytoun he knew chiefly by his " Lays of the Scottish 
Cavaliers." Tennyson, he said, was exceedingly 
popular all over America. He showed me a beau- 
tiful copy of the Laureate's vv^orks that stood among 
the books on his study-table. He spoke of George 
MacDonald, and of John Brown, whose " Spare 
Hours " [Horce Subsecivd\ was much admired. " But 
he is best known," he said, " by some of his shorter 
pieces, ' Rab and his Friends ' is everywhere." 

Of newspapers and journals he said, *' Ours are 
not equal to yours. We have no such classic writ- 
ing here as you have m the Times, Spectator, and 
Saturday Review. But our standard is rising." 

Speaking of the war, he said, "When the Marquis 
of Lome was here, I asked him why the English 
aristocracy were so exultant over the split of our 
Union. The Marquis said it was the instinct of 
caste. He was the first nobleman I met who per- 
ceived, or at least confessed, the truth. I was sur- 
prised to hear the confession even from him." 

He looked at some photographs that I happened 
to have with me. On coming to Cruikshank's, he 



126 LONGFELLOW AND WHIT TIER. 

said, sadly, " How changed he is since I first met 
him at the door of Dickens' house ! It makes me 
feel old to look at him." He admired a picture of 
Thomas Carlyle, taken by Elliot & Fry, but was 
amused beyond measure at the philosopher's appear- 
ance in the handsome cloak which the artist had 
thrown over his shoulders to give effect to the pict- 
ure, and over which the face of Sartor Resartus ap- 
peared, wearing an expression of ludicrously doleful 
resignation. 

Speaking of " Hiawatha " and the Indians, I told 
Longfellow how much I preferred the Indian of 
romance to the Indian of reality, as far as my ex- 
perience of him had gone. 

He said, *' You see no true specimens now. They 
are all degenerated by contact with white men and 
by rum. I doubt if there is a pure uncontaminated 
Indian left on this continent." 

He said that the correct pronunciation of Hia- 
watha was "Hea-wah-tha." 

When I spoke of " Evangeline," but expressed my 
doubt if the hexameter would take root in English 
soil, he said, " I don't know ; I think it will. It is 
a measure that suits all themes. It can fly low like 
a swallow, and at any moment dart skyward. What 
fine hexameters we have in the Bible: ''Husbands love 
your wives, and be not bitter against them.' And that 
line, ^God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the 
sound of a tru77ipet!' Nothing could be grander or 
finer than that !" 



LONGFELLOW AND WHLTTIER. I2y 

"When I wrote 'Evangeline,'" he added, "friends 
here said, ' It is all very well, but you must take an 
English metre ; that hexameter will never do.' But 
my thoughts would run into hexameter. However, 
to please them, I translated some passages into heroic 
measure ; but they agreed, when they heard them 
together, that the hexameter was best." But what- 
ever might be thought of classic measure for new 
poems. Homer and Virgil ought, if possible, he said, 
to be preserved in their native hexameter. Attempts 
to modernize Homer, and put him into English metre, 
were apt to become absurd. It was like putting a 
statue in crinoline, or converting Achilles into a 
modern gentleman. 

A correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, 
writing in the early part of 1881, gives the sub- 
stance of an interesting conversation held with 
the poet in regard to his own works, in the fol- 
lowing account of 

A VISIT TO LONGFELLOW. 

I had hardly time to run my eye over the walls 
clad with the rich mementoes of early times and 
full of the memories of great events, both in war 
and peace, and admire the simple comforts of the 
old parlor, furnished as in primitive times where 
culture and means resided, before an old gentleman 



128 LONGFELLOW AND WHLTTIER. 

Stepped briskly across the hall from the room di- 
rectly opposite, and, extending his hand, heartily 
welcomed me to his interesting home. It was the 
author of ''Evangeline." I was disappointed in his 
appearance, for I had fancied from his portraits a 
large, brawny man, something like Walt "Whitman, 
barring the tendency of that eccentric genius to 
abandon in dress. Instead, here was a man of me- 
dium size, a lithe, finely moulded, rather than sturdy 
form, — " a man of genteel mould," as it were. The 
light in his eye and the warmth of his hand showed 
that the eighty years which have rolled over his head 
have not lain heavily upon him. His face is full of 
genial expression, and the kindly eyes give it a 
charm which cannot be pictured with words. 

" Step into my library," said he, after the greeting, 
and he showed the way across the hall. At first the 
conversation took a wide range. The poet was in- 
clined to ask questions about men and current events, 
and it was quite a time before the drift of chat turned 
upon what he was doing, had done, and expected to 
accomplish, " I am not doing much these days," 
he said ; " simply keeping from getting rusty," and 
he cast his eye around the room at the many evi- 
dences of work lying about, as much as to say, 
" You can see for yourself how much that is." 
Then the talk turned upon his poems and his al- 
ready published works, and I ventured to express a 
curiosity to know the history of his poem, " The 
Hymn of the Moravian Nuns." 



LONGFELLOW AND WHITTIER. 1 29 

" It was one of my early works ; I wrote it while 
at college," he replied. " I read in a newspaper a 
story that the Moravian women at Bethlehem had 
embroidered a banner and presented it to Pulaski. 
The story made an impression upon my mind, and 
one idle day I wrote the poem. I called them Mora- 
vian nuns, because I had gathered from something 
I had heard or read that they were called nuns. I 
suppose I should have said Moravian sisters, but 
the change does n't spoil the romance. I often felt 
a curiosity to go and see the people whose patriotic 
action furnished the themte for this poem, and whose 
peculiar customs and steady thrift have gained them 
the admiration of the world." 

Expressing a preference for his '^ Evangeline," I 
ventured to say, " I see you located the final scene 
of that beautiful story in Philadelphia." " Yes, sir. 
The poem is one of my favorites also — as much, 
perhaps, on account of the manner in which I got 
the groundwork for it as anything else." "What 
is the story, please ? " "I will tell you. Haw- 
thorne came to dine with me one day, and brought 
a friend with him from Salem. While at the dinner 
Mr Hawthorne's friend said to me, * I have been 
trying to get Hawthorne to write a story about the 
banishment of the Acadians from Acadia, founded 
upon the life of a young Acadian girl who was then 
separated from her lover, spent the balance of her 
life searching for him, and when both were old 



130 LONGFELLOW AND WHIT7LER. 

found him dying in a hospital.' 'Yes,' said Haw- 
thorne, 'but there is nothing in that for a story.' I 
caught the thought at once that it would make a 
striking picture if put in verse, and said, ' Haw- 
thorne, give it to me for a poem, and promise me 
that you will not write about it until I have written 
the poem.' 

"Hawthorne readily assented to my request, and 
it was agreed that I should use his friend's story 
for verse whenever I had the time and inclination 
to write it. In 1825 I started for Europe, and 
when in New York concluded I would visit Phila- 
delphia, and so went over. It was in the spring 
about this time, and the country was as beautiful as 
it is to-day. I spent a week in the Quaker City, 
stopping at the old Mansion House, on Third 
Street, near Walnut. It was one of the best hotels 
T ever stopped at, and at that time perhaps the best 
in the country. It had been the private residence 
of the wealthy Binghams^ and was kept by a man 
named Head. The table was excellent, and the 
bedchambers were splendidly furnished, and were 
great, large, airy rooms, as large as this," — turning 
around and surveying the ample library room in 
which we were seated. " It has given way now to 
the demands of business, I believe, for when I v/as 
last there I could hardly recognize the place where 
it stood. During this visit I spent much time look- 
ing about, and Philadelphia is one of the places 



LONGFELLOW AND WHITTLE!^. I3I 

which made a lasting impression upon me and left 
its mark upon my later work. Even the streets of 
Philadelphia make rhyme. 

" Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine, 
Market, Arch, Race, and Vine. 

" I got the climax of * Evangeline ' from Phila- 
delphia, you know, and it was singular how I hap- 
pened to do so. I was passing down Spruce street 
one day toward my hotel after a walk, when my 
attention was attracted to a large building, witli 
beautiful trees about it, inside of a high enclosure, 
I walked along until I came to the great gate, and 
then stepped inside and looked carefully over the 
place. The charming picture of lawn, flower-beds, 
and shade which it presented made an impression 
which has never left me, and twenty-four years 
after, when I came to write ' Evangeline,' I located 
the final scene, the meeting between Evangeline 
and Gabriel, and the death at this poorhouse, and 
the burial in an old Catholic graveyard not far 
away, which I found by chance in another of my 
walks. It is purely a fancy sketch, and the name 
of Evangeline was coined to complete the story. 
The incident IMr. Hawthorne's friend gave me, and 
my visit to the poorhouse in Philadelphia, gave mc 
the groundwork of the poem." 

" The claim is that the Quaker almshouse on 
Walnut Street, near Third, is the one referred to in 
' EvanL^cline.' " 



132 LONGFELLOW AND WHITTIER, 

'^ No, that is not so. I remember that place dis- 
tinctly. It is the old poorhouse I referred to, 
which stood on the square between Spruce and 
Pine and Tenth and Eleventh streets." 

Mr. Longfellow then took from an adjoining 
room a picture of the old Quaker almshouse, and 
explained that the spot which attracted his at- 
tention and marked Philadelphia for the final act 
of " Evangeline " was not this old institution, as 
had been so often claimed. 

" Have you ever been in Philadelphia since the 
visit more than half a century ago ? " 

"Yes, twice. In 1833, and again during the 
Centennial. The scene of one of my latest poems 
is located near Philadelphia. ' Old St. David's at 
Radnor ' — I refer to. I got the impressions for 
this poem during the centennial year, when I was 
there attending the exhibition. I was stopping at 
Rosemont, and one day drove over to Radnor. 
Old St. David's Church, with its charming and pict» 
uresque surroundings, attracted my attention. Its 
diminutive size, peculiar architecture, the little 
rectory in the grove, the quiet churchyard where 
mad Anthony Wayne is buried, the great tree which 
stands at the gateway, and the pile of gray stone 
which makes the old church, and is almost hidden 
by the climbing ivy, — all combine to make it a gem 
for a fancy picture." 



LONGFELLOW AND WHIT TIER. 1 33 

JOHN G. WHITTIER. 

Mr. Whittler's life has been a quiet and se- 
cluded one. Not caring to obtrude his person- 
ality upon the public, he has especially shunned 
the Boswells of the press, and there are extant 
few personal sketches of him. Here, however, 
is a little vignette taken by Miss Bremer when 
the poet was about forty years of age : 

He has a good exterior, a figure slender and tall, 
a beautiful head with refined features, black eyes 
full of fire, dark complexion, a fine smile, and lively 
but very nervous manner. Both soul and spirit 
have overstrained the nervous cords and wasted the 
body. He belongs to those natures who would ad- 
vance with firmness and joy to martyrdom in a good 
cause, and yet who are never comfortable in society, 
and who look as if they would run out of the door 
every moment. He lives with his mother and sis- 
ter in a country-house to which I have promised to 
go. I feel that I should enjoy myself with Whittier, 
and could make him feel at ease with me. I know 
from my own experience what this nervous bash- 
fulness, caused by the over-exertion of the brain, 
requires, and how persons who suffer therefrom 
ought to be met and treated. 

An essayist who met Whittier later in life, 



134 LONGFELLOW AND WHITTIER. 

in 1864, tells us that his first thought on seeing 
him was, *' the head of a Hebrew prophet ! " 
" Indeed, the impression was so strong as to 
induce some little feeling of embarrassment. 
It seemed slightly awkward and insipid to be 
meeting a prophet here in a parlor and in a 
spruce masquerade of modern costume, shak- 
ing hands, and saying, ' Happy to meet you/ 
after the fashion of our feeble civilities." 




CHAPTER IX. 

LOWELL AND HOLMES. 

Description of the Lowell household by Miss Bremer — Lowell's ap- 
pearance and conversation by Justin McCarthy — Oliver Wendell 
Holmes as a lecturer. 

F Mr. Lowell, in his early manhood, Miss 
Bremer, the Swedish novelist, has given 
the following- as her impressions in the "Homes 
of the New World." 

I have now been a week at Cambridge with the 
Lowells ; they will have me stay, and I am quite 
willing to stay, because I am well off to my heart's 
content in this excellent and agreeable home. The 
house and a small quantity of land which surrounds 
it belong to the father of the poet, Dr. Lowell, a 
handsome old man, universally beloved and re- 
spected, and the oldest minister in Massachusetts. 
The whole family assembles every day for morning 
and evening prayers around the venerable old man, 
and he it is who blesses every meal. With him live 

135 



136 LOWELL AND HOLMES. 

his youngest son, the poet, and his wife ; such a 
handsome and happy young couple as one can hardly 
imagine. He is full of life and youthful ardor; she, 
as gentle, as delicate, and as fair as a lily, and one 
of the most lovable women that I have seen in this 
country, because her beauty is full of soul and grace, 
as is every thing which she doesor says. The young 
couple belong to the class of those of whom one 
can be quite sure ; one could not for an hour, nay, 
not for half an hour, be doubtful of them. She, like 
him., has a poetical tendency, and has also written, 
anonymously, some poems, remarkable for their 
deep and tender feeling, especially maternal, but her 
mind has more philosophical depth than his. Singu- 
larly enough, I did not discern in him that deeply 
earnest spirit which charmed me in many of his 
poems. He seems to me occasionally to be bril- 
liant, witty, gay, especially in the evening, when he 
has what he calls his "evening fever," and his talk is 
then like an incessant play of fireworks. I find him 
very agreeable and amiable ; he seems to have many 
friends, mostly young men. As one of his merits, I 
reckon his being so fascinated by his little wife, be- 
cause I am so myself. There is a trace of beauty 
and taste in everything she touches, whether of 
mind or body ; and above all, she beautifies life. 
Among other beautiful things which she has created 
around her in her home, I have remarked a little 
basin full of beautiful stones and shells, which she 



LOWELL AND HOLMES. I 3/ 

herself collected ; they lie glittering in water clear 
as crystal, and round them is a border of coral. 

As a counterpart to the above may be added 
Justin McCarthy's portrait of the poet in his 
maturer years. 

MCCARTHY'S SKETCH OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

There is something very English-looking in Lowell; 
he has nothing of what we in this country regard as 
the American type about him. His strong square 
form, his massive head, with the bright cheery ex- 
pression, and the quiet good-humored eyes, are 
almost exactly what people think a genuine Briton 
ought to have. His appearance naturally surprises, 
at first, those who had known him beforehand only 
through his books. There is so much delicacy and 
subtleness in his graver poems and his essays, his 
criticisms and his thoughts are alike so finely traced 
out, that we are not prepared for so robust and vigor- 
ous a type of man. We had formed in our minds 
the idea, perhaps, of a pale and deep-eyed scholar, 
and we see a broad-shouldered, full-bearded, strong, 
and cheery Anglo-Saxon. Yet, after a while, the 
idea begins somehow to restore and reassert itself. 
There is a certain suggestion of easy and medita- 
tive indecision about the eyes and mouth of the 
strongly built scholar which helps us to recognize 
the author of the over-thoughtful poems and the 



138 LOWELL AND HOLMES. 

exquisitely poetic essays. In the course of a rather 
protracted trial, about which people in this country 
were in the habit of talking a little lately, a lady, called 
as a witness to identity, observed that she did not at 
first exactly recognize the rightful heir in the stout 
personage who stood before her, but that she seemed 
to see the rightful heir somehow hovering about him. 
One who first sees Lowell is perhaps in a somewhat 
similar condition ; there before you is the author of 
the " Biglow Papers " plainly enough — stout, strong, 
and ready to fight against any manner of sham, — 
but where is the poet of '' The Cathedral," and 
*' Under the Willows " ? — where is the author of the 
refined and poetic essays ? But when he speaks, 
and the light of varying expression passes over his 
face, one begins to see the poet and the scholar 
hovering about Hosea Biglow somehow. One soon 
learns to understand how it was that Hosea Biglow 
had so much fancy and poetry in his fibrous nature, 
and how the enthusiast of the "Commemoration 
Ode " could sometimes stop to think, amid the fervor 
of all his patriotic emotion. 

It would be superfluous to say that Lowell has for 
more than twenty years been — perhaps not always 
to his own satisfaction — one of the celebrities of 
Boston and its neighborhood. Truly Boston is a 
place in which a reputation is worth having. The 
community is not too large to know its celebrities. 
A good thing said by a man echoes all round his 



LOWELL AND HOLMES. 1 39 

sphere of existence ; the men of letters all know each 
other, and are friends ; the whole school of poets, 
philosophers, and humorists dine together frequently 
at one table ; the '^Saturday Club" gathers them all 
at its pleasant board. Boston seems to me to be a 
good deal like what Edinburgh must have been in 
its best days of literature. In London, and even to 
some extent in New York, people have to live m 
cliques and coteries. This is so even where they 
belong to the same profession and would be friendly 
if they could. There are only local acquaintance- 
ships and fellowships in a metropolis like ours. No 
fervor of friendship could conquer our distances ; 
it is morally impossible that Kensington and Belsize 
Park could have frequent and familiar intercourse. 
But Boston is of delightful smallness ; even if we 
take in Cambridge, it is still of charmingly conven- 
ient dimensions. Literary men can really know 
each other there, and have sympathies and friend- 
ships. There is something peculiarly friendly about 
the very aspect of the place. Its literary people, 
and indeed its people generally, are said to be rather 
conceited on the subject of their city and its dignity. 
The journals of other cities are never weary of mak- 
ing jokes about the Bostonian's faith in the theory 
that the world takes its time from Boston. It is com- 
monly averred throughout many States of the Union 
that a Massachusetts man regards the frog-pond on 
Boston Common as the noblest expanse of water in 



140 LOWELL AND HOLMES. 

existence. "And now, Mr. ," said a chief of 

Boston letters to an author from New York, who had 
just made a great literary success, "now, when are 
you coming to live in Boston ?" 

In conversation v/ith Mr. Lowell, people are 
some tim.es surprised to find that there is not more 
of the Radical in his political views. He never 
could have been a fanatic, but I cannot help think- 
ing that a certain conservative tendency, so hard to 
keep off from advancing years, is already and pre- 
maturely showing itself in Mr. Lowell's views of 
life. His country has had to pass through so many 
terrible ordeals in his time, that perhaps he is more 
anxious that for a while she should rest and be thank- 
ful than do any thing else. A man with such a mind 
and temperament as his could have but little sym- 
pathy with some of the rather aggressive and enter- 
prising forms in which new ideas have lately mani- 
fested themselves now and then in the United States. 
I have no doubt that he thought the process of pour- 
ing the new wine into the old bottles had been carried 
on with rather too liberal and reckless a hand in the 
sudden elevation of the negro population to full 
citizenship everywhere over the States ; and he 
must have found some of the Woman's Rights " de- 
velopments " rather trying occasionally. Perhaps 
he thinks America has had lately more sentiment of 
all kinds than was quite good for her. Certainly 
his conversation on political and social subjects 



LOWELL AND HOLMES. I4I 

seems of a much shrewder and less enthusiastic 
kind than one might have expected who remembered 
the early apostrophes to Lamartine and Kossuth, 
and the fervor, hardly veiled even in sarcasm, of the 
*'Biglow Papers." Without suggesting any com- 
parison between tv;o men and two careers so unlike, 
I cannot help thinking that Mr. Lowell holds now, 
with regard to the politics of the United States, 
something like the views which Mr. Bright is under- 
stood to entertain with regard to those of England. 
Each is content with a great good done, but sees 
that it cost trouble and sacrifice to do it, and is not 
anxious that any new enterprises should soon be 
undertaken. People who have lately conversed 
with Mr. Bright, and had only known him before 
through newspapers, are always telling us how sur- 
prised they were to find him so conservative in his 
opinions. I can easily understand that the sam'e 
thing might be said of Mr. Lowell. 

But whatever this person or that may think of the 
particular views he happens to express, I, for my- 
self, very much doubt whether Mr. Lowell is ever 
more brilliant and delightful than he shows himself 
in conversation. He is not, by any means, what 
people would have called some years ago a great 
talker ; he never keeps all tlie talk to himself, or 
pours forth long and flowing sentences, or showers 
down the sparkling spray of witticisms over an ad- 
miring and watchful company. He is not in the 



142 LOWELL AND HOLMES. 

least like a Coleridge or a Macaulay ; nor does he 
rush along in unbroken monologues like his coun- 
tryman, the late Mr. Seward ; nor has he the over- 
powering conversational energy of another country- 
man of his, the late Mr, Charles Sumner. The 
charm of Mr. Lowell's conversation is, that it 
is conversation, and not soliloquy, or sermon, or 
the elaborate display of the professional wit. Mr. 
Lowell talks, in fact, after the fashion of ordinary 
people, except that he always talks well ; that when 
most others of us say commonplace things, he says 
something brilliant, or deep, or thoughtful, or some- 
times poetic, or not uncommonly paradoxical. He 
suggests, perhaps, some new and odd way of looking 
at an old subject ; he extracts some humorous con- 
ceit from a very familiar thought or fact ; he draws 
at will upon the rich resources of a scholarship the 
most varied and liberal. Few Englishmen are so 
well acquainted, I should think, with English litera- 
ture at its best periods, and he appears to have a 
not less thorough acquaintance with the literature 
of Greece and Rome, of France and Germany, of 
Italy and Spain. Nothing is more perilous than 
any effort to reproduce in cold blood some bright 
thoughts suggested in passing conversation ; and I 
almost fear to do Mr. Lovv^ell an injustice by at- 
tempting to describe the impression produced on 
me by this or that phrase or suggestion of his. Two 
or three points, however, I feel tempted to recall. 



LOWELL AND LIOL.MES. 1 43 

He talked once of collisions at sea, suggested by 
some recent casualty, and he mentioned ho'>v 
much he had been struck by a passage he had 
read in the evidence of a man saved from such 
a calamity. The man stated that the vessel in 
which he sailed ran right into another vessel, liter- 
ally cutting her in two ; and all he could tell of the 
passengers in the destroyed ship was, that he be- 
came conscious of seeing a person who was lying in 
his berth reading a newspaper by the light of a 
lamp, and this person looked up startled for a mo- 
ment, and no more was seen of ship or passengers. 
Mr. Lowell made, in a few v%^ords, and without any 
appearance of either painting or moralizing, a won- 
derful picture of this little incident, of the quiet 
reader suddenly startled from his paper, and meet- 
ing in the gleam of light the pale, horrified face of 
his innocent destroyer, and then gone forever into 
the darkness. Another time lie told us of some 
wine of marvellous price, of which he liad drunk 
one glass, for the sake, as he put it, of swallowing 
so much liquid wealth ; and the number of quaint 
conceits which he caused to come up like bubbles 
on the surface of that precious glass, the variety of 
ways in which he illustrated the possible value of 
the draught, might have either delighted an Epi- 
curean or a teetotaller according as one chose to 
look at it, or according as he supposed Mr. Lowell 
to be in jest or earnest. His love of paradoxes 



144 LOWELL AND HOLMES. 

made a visitor from England once say that he felt 
reminded, while listening to him, of some of Mr. 
Lowe's more remarkable speeches. Oddly enough, 
Mr. Lowell mentioned the fact that he once crossed 
the Atlantic with Mr. Lowe, and found the conver- 
sation of the latter peculiarly interesting and con- 
genial. Speaking of English poets, Mr. Lowell ob- 
served of one of them, that he " started with a 
finer outfit " than any other, but that his stock got 
so crowded up, he became less able to use it to any 
purpose the longer he went on. Of a certain ten- 
dency in the modern poetry of England, he quietly 
observed, " I don't believe true art ever goes about 
patting the passions on the back." 

Mr. Lowell, it will probably occur to the reader, 
is more of a literary man than most of our living 
English poets, and more of a poet than most of our 
literary men. He is more fully rounded, one might 
say, than most of his English peers and rivals. 

Of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the genial auto- 
crat, poet, and professor, the same travelling 
Scotchman w^ho has afforded us a description 
of Longfellow presents the following sketch, 
taken in the lecture hall of the medical de- 
partment of Harvard College. 

DR. HOLMES AS A LECTURER. 

I was glad to hear that the opening of the medi- 



LOWELL AND HOLMES. 1 45 



cal classes would give me an opportunity of hearing 
Oliver Wendell Holmes deliver the inaugural lect- 
ure. Mr. Fields, the publisher, who went with me, 
took me round to the museum behind the lecture- 
hall, where we found a number of the literary and 
scientific men of Boston assembled to accompany 
Dr. Holmes to the platform. The doctor himself 
was there, but was altogether a different-looking 
man from what I had supposed him to be. I had 
conceived of him, for what reason I know not, pos- 
sibly from his poetry, as a tall, thin, dark-eyed, 
brilliant-looking man. This is not, perhaps, the 
conception one gets from his " Autocrat of the 
Breakfast-Table " ; but I read his poems first, and 
first impressions are apt to remain. Holmes is a 
plain little dapper man, his short hair brushed 
down like a boy's, but turning gray now ; a trifle of 
furzy hair under his ears ; a powerful jaw, and a 
thick, strong underlip that gives decision to his 
look, with a dash of pertness. In conversation, he 
is animated and cordial, — sharp, too, taking the 
word out of one's mouth. When Mr. Fields said, 

"I sent the boy this " " Yes ; I got them," said 

Holmes. He told me I should hear some refer- 
ences to Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh in his lect- 
ure ; also some thoughts he had taken from Dr. 
Brown's fine essay on Locke and Sydenham. '' But 
you see," he added with a smile, '' I always tell 
when I steal any thing ! " 



14^ LO WELL A ND HOLMES. 

Near us, under one of the lofty windows, two 
men were standing, whom I would have travelled 
many a league to meet. One of them was Professor 
Louis Agassiz — big, massive, genial-looking ; the 
rich healthy color on his broad face still telling of 
the Old World from which he came, — altogether a 
man v/ho, but for his dark, keen eyes, would look 
more like a jovial English squire than a devotee of 
science. Beside him stood a man of strangely dif- 
ferent build — a gaunt, long-limbed man, — dressed in 
a high-collared surtout, his piquant New England 
face peering down over the old-fashioned black 
kerchief that swathed his long, thin neck. It was 
Emerson, the glorious transcendentalist of Concord. 
He stood in an easy, contemplative attitude, with 
his hands loosely folded in front, and his head 
slightly inclined. He has the queerest New Eng- 
land face, with thin features, prominent hatchet 
nose, and a smile of childlike sweetness and sim- 
plicity arching the face and drawing deep curves 
down the cheek. Eyes, too, full of sparkling geni- 
ality, and yet in a moment turning cold, clear, and 
searching, like the eyes of a god. I remember, 
when introduced to him, how kindly he took my 
hand, and with that smile still upon his face, peered 
deep with those calm blue eyes into mine. 

When the hour arrived we went into the lecture 
room. Let me try to bring up the scene again. 
The room is crowded to the door, — so crov/ded that 



LOWELL AND HOLMES. 1 47 

many of the students have to sit on the steps leading 
up between the sections of concentric seats, and 
stand crushed three or four deep in the passages 
along the walls. What a sea of pale faces, and 
dark, thoughtful eyes ! 

Holmes, Emerson, and Agassiz are cheered loudly 
as they enter and take their seats. The Principal 
opens proceedings with a short prayer, the audi- 
ence remaining seated. Dr. Holmes now gets up, 
steps forward to the high desk amidst loud cheers, 
puts his eye-glasses across his nose, arranges his 
manuscript, and, without any prelude, begins. The 
little man, in his dress coat, stands very straight, a 
little stiff about the neck, as if he feels that he 
cannot afford to lose any thing of his stature. He 
reads with a sharp, percussive articulation, is very 
deliberate and formal at first, but becomes more 
animated as he goes on. He would even gesticu- 
late if the desk were not so high, for you see the 
arm that lies on the desk beside his manuscript 
giving a nervous quiver at emphatic points. The 
subject of this lecture is the spirit in which medical 
students should go into their work, — now as stu- 
dents, afterward as practitioners. He warns them 
against looking on it as a mere lucrative employ- 
ment. '* Don't be like the man who said, ' I sup- 
pose I musf go and earn that d d guinea ! ' " 

He enlivens his lecture with numerous jokes and 
brilliant sallies of wit, and at every point hitches up 



148 LOWELL AND HOLMES. 

his head, looks through his glasses at his audience as 
he finishes his sentence, and then shuts his mouth 
pertly with his underlip as if he said, ** There, 
laugh at that ! " 

Emerson sits listening, with his arms folded 
loosely on his breast, — that queer smile of his effer- 
vescing at every joke into a silent laugh, that runs up 
into his eyes and quivers at the corners of his eye- 
brows, like sunlight in the woods. Beside him sits 
Agassiz, leaning easily back in his chair, trifling 
with the thick watch-guard that glitters on his 
capacious white waistcoat, and looking like a man 
who has just had dinner and is disposed to take 
a pleasant view of things. 

Holmes is becoming more animated. His arm 
is in motion now, indulging in mild movements 
toward the desk, as if he meant to kill a fly, but al- 
ways repents and does n't. He shows less mercy 
on the persons and opinions that he has occasion 
to criticise. He comes down sharply on " the 
quacks, with or without diplomas, who think that 
the chief end of man is to support the apothecary," 
He has a passing hit at Carlyle's " Shooting 
Niagara," and his discovery of the legitimate suc- 
cessor of Jesus Christ in the drill-sergeant. He 
has also a fling at Dr. Gumming of London, and 
*' his prediction that the world is to come to an end 
next year or next week, weather permitting, but 
very sure that the weather will be unpropitious." 



LOWELL AND HOLMES. 1 49 

The lecture lasted about an hour, and at its close 
was applauded again and again, Holmes being a 
great favorite with the students. I met him after- 
ward at a dinner given to Longfellow and his lit- 
erary friends, in congratulation on the completion 
of the poet's translation of Dante ; and hoped there 
to enjoy one of the autocrat's after-dinner speeches, 
which are said to be among his most brilliant per- 
formances. Longfellow, however, unlike most 
Americans, shrinks from any kind of public speak- 
ing himself, and Mr. Fields came round at dessert 
to inform us that Longfellow had declared that if 
he had to make a speech he should be in torment 
all the evening and lose the enjoyment of his din- 
ner. It had, therefore, been resolved that there 
should be no speeches ; so Holmes' power as an 
impj'ovisaiore had no opportunity for exercising 
itself that night. 



CHAPTER X. 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

His cheerfulness— Some reminiscences by James T. Fields, George 
William Curtis, and others— His shyness and love of seclusion — 
His personal appearance. 

IN her preface to the English **Note-Books," 
the wife of Hawthorne protests against 
*' the often-expressed opinion that Mr. Haw- 
thorne was gloomy and morbid." " He had," 
she says, '' the inevitable pensiveness and 
gravity of a person who possessed what a 
friend of his called ^ the av/ful power of in- 
sight ' ; but his mood was always cheerful and 
equal, and his mind peculiarly healthful, and 
the airy splendor of his wit and humor was the 
life of his home. He saw too far to be de- 
spondent, though his vivid sympathies and 
shaping imagination often made him sad in be- 
half of others. He also perceived morbidness, 
wherever it existed, instantly, as if by the illu- 

150 



NA THANIEL HA WTHORNE. I 5 I 

mination of his steady cheer, and he had the 
plastic power of putting himself into each per- 
son's situation and of looking from every point 
of view, which made his charity most compre- 
hensive. From this cause he necessarily at- 
tracted confidences and became confessor to 
very many sinning and suffering souls, to whom 
he gave tender sympathy and help, while re- 
signing judgment to the Omniscient and All- 
Wise." 

Mr. James T. Fields tells us that he has 
often been asked if all Hawthorne's moods 
were sombre, and if he was never jolly some- 
times like other people, to which he answers : 

Indeed he was, and although the humorous side of 
Hawthorne was not easily or often discoverable, yet 
have I seen him marvellously moved to fun, and no 
man laughed more heartily in his way over a good 
story. Wise and witty, H,, in v/hom wisdom and 
wit are so ingrained that age only increases his 
subtle spirit and greatly enhances the power of his 
cheerful temperament, always had the talismanic 
faculty of breaking up that thoughtfully sad face 
into mirthful v/aves ; and I remember how Haw- 
thorne writhed with hilarious delight over Prof. 

L 's account of a butcher who remarked that 

*' Idees had got afloat in tlie public mind with re- 



152 A' A THANIEL HA WTJIORNE. 

spect to sassingers." I once told him of a young 
woman who brought in a manuscript and said, as 
she placed it in my hands, '' I don't know what to 
do with myself sometimes, I 'm so filled with mam- 
moth thotights.*' A series of convulsive efforts to 
suppress explosive laughter followed, w^hich I re- 
member to this day. 

And here is Mr. Fields' description of a sea 
voyage (the return trip to America), on which 
Hawthorne's powers of badinage were exerted 
to keep up the spirits of his travelling compan- 
ions. 

Hawthorne's love for the sea amounted to a pas- 
sionate worship ; and while I (the worst sailor prob- 
ably on this planet) was longing, spite of the good 
company on board, to reach land as soon as possible, 
Hawthorne was constantly saying in his quiet, earnest 
way, " I should like to sail on and on forever and 
never touch the shore again." He liked to stand 
alone in the bows of the ship and see the sun go 
down, and he was never tired of walking the deck 
at midnight. I used to watch his dark solitary 
figure, pacing up and down some unfrequented part 
of the vessel, musing and half melancholy. Some- 
times he would lie down beside me and commiser- 
ate my unquiet condition. Sea-sickness, he de- 
clared, he could not understand, and was constantly 



.VA Til A NI EL JIA VVrilORNE. I 5 3 

recommending most extraordinary dishes and drinks 
"all made out of the artisfs brain," which he said 
were sovereign remedies for nautical sickness. I 
remember to this day some of the preparations 
which, in his revelry of fancy, he would advise me 
to take, a farrago of good things almost rivalling 
" Oberon's Feast " spread out so daintily in Her- 
rick's " Hesperides." He thought, at first, if I 
could bear a few roc's eggs beaten up by a mer- 
maid on a dolphin's back, I might be benefited. 
He decided that a gruel made from a sheaf of Rob- 
in Hood's arrows would be strengthening. When 
suffering pain, "a right gude willie-waught," or a 
stiff cup of hemlock of the Socrates brand, before 
retiring, he considered very good. He said he had 
heard recommended a dose of salts distilled from 
the tears of Niobe, but he did n't approve of that 
remedy. He observed that he had a high opinion 
of hearty food, such as potted owl with Minerva 
sauce, airy tongues of sirens, stewed ibis, livers of 
Roman Capitol geese, the wings of a phoenix not too 
much done, love-lorn nightingales cooked briskly 
over Aladdin's lamp, chicken pies made of fowls 
raised by Mrs, Carey, nautilus chowder, and the 
like. Examining my garments one day as I lay on 
deck, he tliought I was not warmly enough clad, 
and he recommended, before I took another voy- 
age, that I should fit myself out in Liverpool with a 
good warm shirt from the shop of Nessus & Co., in 



1 54 NA THANIEL HA WTHORNE. 

Bond Street, where I could also find stout seven- 
league boots to keep out the damp. He knew 
another shop, he said, where I could buy raven- 
down stockings, and sable clouds with a silver lin- 
ing, most warm and comfortable for a sea- voyage. 

His own appetite was excellent, and day after 
day he used to come on deck after dinner and 
describe to me what he had eaten. Of course his 
accounts were always exaggerations, for my amuse- 
ment. I remember one night he gave me a running 
catalogue of what food he had partaken during 
the day, and the sum total was convulsing from 
its absurdity. Among the viands he had con- 
sumed, I remember he stated there were " several 
yards of steak " and a "whole warrenful of Welsh 
rabbits." The " divine spirit of humor " was upon 
him during many of these days at sea, and he 
revelled in it like a careless child. 

In gener^il company, Hawthorne v^^as silent 
and reserved. He was intensely shy, so much 
so that he has been knov/n to leave the high 
way for the fields rather than encounter a 
group of approaching villagers. He loved to 
go on solitary walks, he sought out secluded 
places where he could muse and dream without 
fear of disturbance. Once he brought Mr. 
Fields to one of these haunts, and bade him 



NA THANIEL HA IVTHORNE. I 5 5 

lie down on the grass, and watch the clouds float 
above, and hear the birds sing. "As we steeped 
ourselves in the delicious idleness, he began to 
murmur some half-forgotten lines from Thom- 
son's ' Seasons,' which he said had been favor- 
ites of his from boyhood. While we lay there, 
hidden in the grass, we heard approaching foot- 
steps, and Hawthorne hurriedly whispered, 
*Duck! or we shall be interrupted by some- 
body.' The solemnity of his manner, and the 
thought of the down-flat position in which we 
had both placed ourselves to avoid being seen, 
threw me into a foolish, semi-hysterical fit of 
laughter, and when he nudged me, and again 
whispered more lugubriously than ever, ' Heav- 
en help me, Mr. is close upon us !' I 

felt convinced that if the thing went further, 
suffocation, in m.y case at least, must ensue." 

Mr. George William Curtis gives these remi- 
niscences of the author of the " Scarlet Let- 
ter," and of the shy reserve with which he bore 
himself in society. 

MR. CURTls' REMINISCENCES. 

During Hawthorne's first year's residence in Con- 
cord, I had driven up, with some friends, to an aesthet- 
ic tea at Mr. Emerson's. It was in the winter, and a 



156 NA THAN I EL HA VVTHORNE, 



great wood-fire blazed upon the hospitable hearth. 
There were various men and v/omen assembled, 
and I, who listened attentively to all the fine things 
that were said, was for some time scarcely aware of 
a man who sat upon the edge of the circle, a little 
withdrawn, his head slightly thrown forward upon 
his breast, and his bright eyes clearly burning under 
his black brow. As I drifted down the stream of 
talk, this person, who sat silent as a shadow, looked 
to me as Webster might have looked, had he been a 
poet, — a kind of poetic Webster. He rose and 
walked to the window, and stood quietly there for a 
long time, watching the dead v/hite landscape. No 
appeal was made to him, nobody looked after him, 
the conversation flovv^ed steadily on as if every one 
understood that his silence was to be respected. It 
was the same thing at table. In vain the silent man 
imbibed sesthetic tea. Whatever fancies it inspired 
did not flower at his lips. But there was a light in 
his eye which assured me that nothing was lost. So 
supreme was his silence that it presently engrossed 
me to the exclusion of everything else. There was 
very brilliant discourse, but this silence was much 
more poetic and fascinating. Fine things were said 
by the philosophers, but much finer things were im- 
plied by the dumbness of this gentleman, with heavy 
brows and black hair. When he presently rose and 
went, Emerson, with the " slow wise smile " that 
breaks over his face, like day over the sky, said : 



A'A THANIEL HA IVTHORNE. 157 

'' Hawthorne rides well his horse of the night." 

Thus he remained in my memory a shadow, a 
phantom, until more than a year afterward, when I 
came to live in Concord. Every day I passed his 
house, but when the villagers, thinking perhaps that 
I had some clue to the mysterv, said : 

" Do you know this Mr. Hawthorne ? " 

I said, " No," and trusted to time. 

Time justified my confidence, and one day I too 
v\'ent down the avenue, and disappeared in the house. 
I mounted those mysterious stairs to that apocry- 
phal study. I saw the cheerful coat of paint and 
golden-tinted paper-hangings, lighting up the small 
apartment ; while the shadow of a willow-tree, that 
swept against the overhanging eaves, attempered the 
cheery western sunshine. I looked from the little 
northern window whence the old pastor watched 
the battle, and in the small dining-room beneath it 
upon the first floor, there was 

"Dainty chicken, snow-white bread," 

and the golden juices of Italian vineyards, which 
still feast insatiable memory. 

Our author occupied the Old Manse for three 
years. During that time he was not seen, probably, 
by more than a dozen of the villagers. His walks 
could easily avoid the town, and upon the river he 
was alwavs sure of solitude It was his favorite 
habit to bathe every evening in the river, after night- 



158 NA THA NIEL HA W THORNE, 

fall, and in that part of it over which the old bridge 
stood, at which the battle was fought. Sometimes, 
bat rarely, his boat accompanied another up the 
stream, and I recall the silent and preternatural 
vigor with which, on one occasion, he wielded his 
paddle to counteract the bad rowing of a friend v/ho 
conscientiously considered it his duty to do some- 
thing, and not let Hav^^thorne v/ork alone, but who 
with every stroke neutralized all Hawthorne's efforts. 
I suppose he would have struggled until he fell 
senseless, rather than ask his friend to desist. His 
principle seemed to be, if a man cannot understand 
without talking to him, it is quite useless to talk, 
because it is immaterial whether such a man under- 
stands or not. His own sympathy was so broad 
and sure, that although nothing had been said for 
hours, his companion knew that not a thing had 
escaped his eye, nor had a single pulse of beauty in 
the day, or scene, or society, failed to thrill his heart. 
In this way his silence was most social. Everything 
seemed to have been said. It was a Barmecide 
feast of discourses, from which a greater satisfac- 
tion resulted than from an actual banquet. 

When a formal attempt was made to desert this 
style of conversation, the result was ludicrous. 
Once Emerson and Thoreau arrived to pay a call. 
They were shown into the little parlor upon the 
avenue, and Hawthorne presently entered. Each 
of the guests sat upright in his chair like a Roman 



A' A THANIAL HA WTHORNE. I 59 

Senator. To them Hawthorne seemed like a Dacian 
king. The call went on, but in a most melancholy 
manner. The host sat perfectly still, or occasionally 
propounded a question, which Thoreau answered 
accurately, and there the thread broke short off. 
Emerson delivered sentences that only needed the 
setting of an essay to charm the world ; but the 
whole visit was a vague ghost of the Monday Even- 
ing Club at Mr. Emerson's, — it was a great failure. 
Had they all been lying idly by the river-bank, or 
strolling in Thoreau's blackberry pastures, the re- 
sult would have been utterly different But im- 
prisoned in the proprieties of a parlor, each a wild 
man in his way, with a necessity of talking inher- 
ent in the nature of the occasion, there was only a 
waste of treasure. This was the only "call" in 
v/hich I ever knew Hawthorne to be involved. 

In his personal appearance, Hawthorne was 
not only remarkably handsome, but he looked 
the man of genius in every feature. His pictures 
hardly do him justice. " It was impossible," 
says Fields, *' for art to give the light and beauty 
of his wonderful eyes. I remember to have 
heard, in the literary circles of Great Britain, 
that since Burns no author had appeared there 
with a finer face than Hawthorne's. I hap- 
pened to be in London with Hawthorne during 



l6o NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 

his consular residence in England, and was al- 
ways delighted at the rustle of admiration his 
personal appearance excited when he entered 
a room. His bearing was modestly grand, 
and his voice touched the ear like a melody." 

Once, while Hawthorne was surveyor at the 
port of Salem, two Shakers, leaders in their 
community, visited the custom-house, and 
were conducted through its various depart- 
ments. With what keen scrutiny the broad- 
hatted strangers were regarded by Hawthorne, 
as they passed through his room, may be 
imagined from the fact that no sooner was the 
door shut as they passed out, than the elder 
of the celibates asked, with great interest, who 
that man was, and remarking upon his strong 
face and those eyes, the most wonderful he 
had ever beheld, he said, " Mark my words, 
that man will make in some way a deep 
impression upon the world." 




CHAPTER XI. 

WALT WHITMAN. 

Whitman amonp^ the Bohemians of New York— His friends and asso- 
ciates in Pfaff's restaurant— Reminiscences of a visit *^o Whitman 
by M. D. Conway — Appearance and personal characteristics. 

F Whitman in his early days, before he 
became famous, and when he was only 
known as a " good fellow " among that wild set 
of Bohemians who, a generation ago, consti- 
tuted the literary society of New York, — of 
the Whitman of those days an interesting 
glimpse is afforded in the following article, 
contributed by '' Jay Charlton " to the Danbury 
NewSy upon, 

BOHEMIANS IN AMERICA. 

In the fall of 185S a little, thin, wiry man, with a 
grim, weird face, and a snap of the terrier about 
him, made himself conspicuous among the under- 
graduates in literature in New York. He was as- 

161 



1 62 IV ALT IV HITMAN. 

sertive, quirkish, and odd, full of French jerks and 
Yankee quips. His face was small, hard, and cold, 
covered over with a forbidding beard of a dark- 
reddish color. He was a native of Nantucket and 
a graduate of Paris Bohemianism, and when he 
talked it was like snapping glass under your heel. 
He had the greatest sort of contempt for any writer 
who would use a word of two or more syllables 
when the same meaning could be conveyed in one 
syllable. This man's name was Henry Clapp, Jr. 
He believed it to be his destiny to establish a new 
sort of literature in New York, something that 
would become national, and that would cut off from 
all newspaper and magazine articles the long Nor- 
man words, and keep all utterances confined to the 
short, expressive Saxon. With this object in view 
he drew around him many of the promising literary 
men of the day. Pfaff's restaurant on Broadway, a 
few doors east of where it now is, near the Grand 
Central Hotel, was selected as the headquarters 
where the genial company met, and very soon 
*' Pfaff's " had a national reputation. There was a 
long table under the sidewalk at which about thirty 
persons could seat themselves comfortably. A look 
in any evening after six o'clock would discover at 
that table Henry Clapp, Walt Whitman, Fitz James 
O'Brien, Ned Wilkins, George Arnold, Sheppard, 
Gardette, William Winter, and several others whose 
names I now forget. After dinner, which was al- 



IVALT WHITMAN. 1 63 

ways as good as one at Delmonico's^ clay pipes and 
literary criticism were in order. Whitman generally 
had a half-written "yawp" — that's what he called a 
short poem — to submit to us. His small blue eyes 
would beam with good-nature, and his big, shaggy 
head and beard would assert themselves with a 
strength and grandeur that became a great poet. 
Walt liked to be considered a poet, but his " yawps " 
were wretched failures, and every publisher refused 
to print them until Clapp started his weekly Press 
in 1859. It was a bright paper, but of short dura- 
tion. It was started without a dollar and died with- 
out a cent. William Winter was its literary critic. 
He was assisted by Clapp, Ada Clare, Ned Wilkin s, 
and George Arnold, with three quarts of beer, which 
Clapp carried into the sanctum at No. 8 Spruce 
Street every afternoon in a tin pail. Turning to 
me in Pfaff's one cold night, while '* spiced rum" 
seemed in great demand, Walt Whitman said, 
*' The reason I like to drive a stage-coach on Broad- 
way, I feel that the strength of the horses passes 
into my veins, my muscles, and after that I can 
give strength to my poetry." Walt had a great ad- 
miration for everything big, whether animate or in- 
animate. He thought he could write great poems 
if he were on the top of the Sierras or among the 
great trees of California. The v/ay he came to con- 
sider himself a poet was due to a prose sketch he 
wrote, describing a death in a school-room. The 



164 JFAL7' WHITMAN. 

piece was vividly written and widely copied. That 
was when he and Joe Otterson (to be remembered 
as the " Bayard " of Wakes' Spirit of the Times) 
were setting type in a New York printing-office. 
Walt was elated at the success of his sketch, Joe 
told Walt that both should go to Fowler's and have 
their heads phrenologically examined. They went. 
Fowler told Walt that his love of approbation made 
him a laughing-stock. Fowler told Joe that he was 
as stubborn as a jackass, and he dismissed them 
both as a pair of donkeys. But Joe was no donkey, 
and he has served journalism well. Walt went to 
New Orleans, was a reporter and failed. Joe went 
on the Tribune^ and was a success as night editor. 
He now oscillates between a fat berth in the cus- 
tom-house and the newspapers about Printing 
House Square. I once saw Joe mad. When he 
was doing the theatres for the Spirit^ it was his cus- 
tom to drop into Pfaff' s occasionally with Ada Clif- 
ton on his arm. Somebody put it in the papers that 
Joe and Ada were affianced, and gave as one of the 
reasons, that Joe had lately had a new coat of dye 
put on his head and whiskers. He came into Pfaff's 
v.'ith a scowl on his brow, and after denouncing all 
the scribes round the festive board in a volley of 
invectives, he left " Bohemia," to scourge its vota- 
ries for years afterward with a pen " dipped in 
gall." 

When Fitz-Greene Halleck came up from the 



IVAL7' WHirMAN. 1 6$ 

state of Connecticut once or twice in the year, it 
was his wont to call in and see the '' young fellows," 
as he called us. Some called him Bozzaris, and some, 
for short, would hail him as Marco. He laughed 
and took everything good-humoredly. He was 
pleasant and jovial as a young man of twenty. He 
liked a hot whiskey punch, very hot. Sitting by his 
side one evening that he surprised us with a visit, he 
ordered a hot whiskey. He would take a sip or tv^o 
and then say, " Young man, this is rather cold ; I 
want it hotter." Before he finished his punch he 
had it made " hotter " three times. He said to us, 
" When I die I shall have no literary reputation to 
leave behind me. What I have written has been 
for pastime, not for fame or money." I said, '' Your 
Marco Bozzaris will live." His answer was, "It 
may, till something better takes its place. I wrote 
that poem with blood at fever-heat, and gave it 
three sittings." It was the general expression of 
hope round the table, after several rounds of drinks, 
that Astor would open his heart and increase iMar- 
co's pension from the paltry $500 which he re- 
ceived, to at least $5000 a year. But Halleck 
would laugh, shake his head, and declare himself 
entirely happy and satisfied. He said that W\alt 
Whitman ought to write his " yawps *' seated on an 
elephant, in order to add to their strength and 
heaviness. Walt's poetry Halleck considered no 
poetry at all. Yet there was and still is enough of 



1 66 WALT WHITMAN. 

the poetic fibre in Walt Whitman's poetry to make a 
half-dozen of poetic fledglings. The trouble with 
Walt, he lacks art and simple dignity of expression. 
His Pegasus is a mad bull, dashing furiously into 
swamps, ditches, and dung-hills, and then frighten- 
ing literature by shaking his muddy horns at it. He 
is a man possessing a large heart, a large soul, and 
a large nature, but he would have served the world 
better had he stuck to the printer's case and left 
poetry alone. 

At the outbreak of the Southern rebellion Walt 
Whitman and George Arnold came to an unpleas- 
antness while enjoying their usual after-dinner 
punch. They were sitting opposite each other at 
the table. George was for rebellion and Walt was 
opposed. George was full of " treasonism " and 
Walt was full of " patriotism." Words grew hot. 
Walt warned George to be more guarded in his sen- 
timents. George fired up more and more. Walt 
passed his " mawler " toward George's ear. George 
passed a bottle of claret toward the top-knot of the 
poet's head. Pfaft made a jump and gave a yell of 
"Oh ! mine gots, mens, what 's you do for dis ? " 
Clapp broke his black pipe while pulling at Arnold's 
coot-tail ; Ned Wilkins lost the power of his lungs 
for five minutes after tugging at the brawny arm of 
Walt ; and we all received a beautiful mixture of 
rum, claret, and coffee on the knees of our trousers. 
Everything was soon amicably settled, and Walt 



IVALT WHITMAN. 167 

and George shook hands, and wondered much that 
they were so foolish. In those days Walt dressed 
somewhat in the fashion of a brigand. He had a 
big collar to his shirt which never knew starch. 
That collar was rolled away back and down on his 
neck, which was bare nearly to the breast, which 
was very hairy. A black neckerchief, tied sailor- 
fashion, fell loosely under his collar. He wore a 
close-fitting monkey-jacket, which gave him a pi- 
ratical cast ; and a great big black slouch hat, with 
an immense brim and an immense crown, cov- 
ered the poet's head. He gave me his picture once. 
I think it was taken in his shirt-sleeves. I gave it, 
two days afterward, to James T. Brady, while 
Charles G. Halpine and I were lunching v/ith him 
at lower Delmonico's. Brady was the best Bohe- 
mian I ever knew. He was a genius ; he loved 
genius. He despised wealth, and he hated work. 
He seemed always to be forced into work to save 
his friends, not to earn a livelihood. But a truce 
here. His memory is sacred to me. William Win- 
ter came from the Cambridge (Mass.) C/n-onick in 
1859. He wrote his poem of the ''Ruined Man " 
while sipping a glass of mulberry wine down-stairs 
in a saloon in Sudbury Street, Boston. He had 
only twenty-five cents in his pocket to face the 
world. So he 

** Drank to the woman who wrought his woe, 
In the diamond morn of lon^r ago." 



1 68 WALT whitman: 

Winter is considered not only one of the best dra- 
matic writers in the country, but one of the sweetest 
poets — one of the few poets who know what poetry 
is and can write it. He can make a better after- 
dinner speech than any other man in New York. 
He is humorous, witty, and full of amusement. At 
Pfaff's he would have his companions almost rolling 
under the table with laughter, when the fit was on 
him to make "a few remarks." 

The Rev. Moncure D. Conway, writing to 
the Fortnightly Review, in 1865, contributes the 
following reminiscences of 

A VISIT TO WALT WHITMAN, 

Having occasion to visit New York soon after the 
appearance of Walt Whitman's book, I was engaged 
by some friends to search him out, and make some 
report to them concerning him. It was on a Sun- 
day in midsummer that I journeyed through the al- 
most interminable and monstrous streets which 
stretch out upon " fish-shaped Paumanok," and the 
direction led me to the very last house outward 
from the great city — a small wooden house of two 
stories. At my third knock a fine-looking old lady 
opened the door just enough to eye me carefully 
and ask what I wanted. It struck me, after a little, 
that his mother — for so she declared herself — was 
apprehensive that an agent of the police might be 



JFJL7' IV HI TM AN. 1 69 



after her son on account of his audacious book. At 
last, however, she pointed to an open common Avitli 
a central hill and told me I should find her son 
there. The day was excessively hot, the thermom- 
eter at nearly 100°, and the sun blazed down as 
only on sandy Long Island can the sun blaze. The 
common had not a single tree as shelter, and it 
seemed to me that only a devout fire-worshipper 
indeed could be found there on such a day. No 
human being could I see at first in any direction ; 
but just as I was about to return I saw, stretched 
upon his back and gazing up straight at the terrible 
sun, the man I was seeking. With his gray cloth- 
ing, his blue-gray shirt, his iron-gray hair, his swart 
sunburnt face and bare neck, he lay upon the 
brown-and-white grass — for the sun had burnt away 
its greenness — and was so like the earth upon which 
he rested, that he seemed almost enough a part of 
it for one to pass by without recognition. I a])- 
proached him, gave my name and reason for search- 
ing him out, and asked him if he did not find the 
sun rather hot. " Not at all too hot," was the 
reply ; and he confided to me that this was one of 
his favorite places and attitudes for composing 
poems. He then walked with me to his house, and 
took me along its narrow ways to his room. A 
small room of about fifteen feet square, with 
a single window looking out on tlie barren solitude 
of the island ; a small cot, a wash-stand with a little 



I/O WALT WHITMAN, 

looking-glass hung over it from a tack in the wall, 
a pine table with pen, ink, and paper on it, an old 
line-engraving, representing Bacchus, hung on the 
wall, and opposite a similar one of Silenus ; these 
constituted the visible environment of Walt Whit- 
man. There was not, apparently, a single book in 
the room. In reply to my expression of a de- 
sire to see his books he declared that he had very 
few. I found, upon further inquiry, that he had re- 
ceived only such a good English education as every 
American lad may receive from the public schools, 
and that he now had access to the libraries of some 
of his friends. The books he seemed to know and 
love best were the Bible, Homer, and Shakespeare ; 
these he owned, and probably had in his pockets 
while we were talking. He had two studies where 
he read : one was the top of an omnibus, and the 
other a small mass of sand, then entirely uninhabit- 
ed, far out in the ocean, called Coney Island. Many 
days had he passed on that island, as completely 
alone as Crusoe. He had no literary acquaintance, 
beyond a company of Bohemians who wrote for the 
Saturday Press — the organ at that time of all the au- 
dacity of New York, — whom he now and then met 
at Pfaff' s lager-beer cellar. He was remarkably 
taciturn, however, about himself — considering the 
sublime egoism of his book — and cared only about 
his *' poems," of which he read me one that had 
not then appeared. I could not help suspecting 



IVAL7' WHITMAN. 17I 

that he must have had masters ; but lie declared 
that he had learned all that he knew from omnibus- 
drivers, ferry-boat pilots, fishermen, boatmen, and 
the men and women of the markets and wharves. 
These were all inarticulate poets, and he interpreted 
them. The only distinguished contemporary he 
ever met was the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of 
Brooklyn, who had visited him. He had, he said, 
asked Mr. Beecher what were his feelings when he 
heard a man swear, and that gentleman having ad- 
mitted that he felt shocked, he (Whitman) con- 
cluded that he still preferred keeping to the boat- 
men for his company. He was at the time a little 
under forty years of age. His father had been a 
farmer on Long Island, and Walt had worked on the 
farm in early life. His father was of English, his 
mother of Dutch descent, thus giving him the blood 
of both the races that had settled in New York. In 
his youth he had listened to the preaching of the 
great Quaker iconoclast, Elias Hicks, of whom his 
parents were followers ; and I fancy that Hicks, 
than whom few abler men have appeared in any 
country in modern times, gave the most important 
contribution to his education. After leaving his 
father's farm, he taught school for a short time, then 
became a printer, and afterward a carpenter. When 
his first volume appeared, he was putting up frame 
buildings in Brooklyn ; the volume was, however, 
set in type entirely by his own hand. He had been 



1/2 WALT WHITMAN. 

originally of the Democratic party ; but when the 
Fugitive Slave Law was passed he found that he 
was too really democratic for that, and uttered his 
declaration of independence in a poem called 
" Blood-money," — a poem not found in his v/orks, 
but which was the first he ever Vv^rote. He con- 
fessed to having no talent for industry, and that his 
forte was "loafing and writing poems"; he was 
poor, but had discovered that he could, on the 
whole, live magnificently on bread and water. He 
had travelled through the country as far as New 
Orleans, where he had once edited a paper. But I 
would find, he said, all of him — his life, works, and 
days — in his book ; he had kept nothing back 
whatever. 

We passed the remainder of the day roaming or 
"loafing "on Staten Island, where we had shade 
and many miles of a beautiful beach. Whilst we 
bathed, I was impressed by a certain grandeur 
about the man, and remembered the picture of 
Bacchus on the wall of his room. I then perceived 
that the sun had put a red mask on his face and 
neck, and that his body was a ruddy blonde, pure 
and noble, his form being at the same time remark- 
able for fine curves and for that grace of movement 
which is the flower of shapely and well-knit bones. 
His head was uniform in every way ; his hair, 
which was strongly mixed with gray, was cut close 
to his head, and, with his beard, was in strange con- 



IVALT WHITMAN. 173 

trast to the almost infantile fulness and serenity of 
his face. This serenity, however, came from the 
quiet, light-blue eyes, and above these there were 
three or four horizontal furrows, which life had 
ploughed. The first glow of any kind which I sav*^ 
about him was when he entered the water, which he 
fairly hugged with a lover's enthusiasm. But when 
he was talking about that v/hich deeply interested 
him, his voice, always gentle and clear, became slow, 
and his eyelids had a tendency to decline over his 
eyes. It was impossible not to feel at every mo- 
ment the reality of every word and movement of 
the man, and also the surprising delicacy of one 
who was even freer with his pen than modest Mon- 
taigne. 

After making an appointment to meet Walt again 
during the week, when we would saunter through 
the streets of New York, I went off to find my- 
self almost sleepless with thinking of this new ac- 
quaintance. He had so magnetized me, so charged 
me, as it were, with somewhat undefinable, that for 
a time the only wise course of life seemed to be to 
put on a blue shirt and a blouse and loaf about 
Manahatta and Paumanok — *' loaf and invite my 
soul," to use my new friend's phrase. I found time 
hanging heavily on my hands, and the sights of the 
brilliant city tame, whilst waiting for the next meet- 
ing, and wondered if he would seem such a grand 
fellow when I saw him again. I found him on the 



174 WALT IV HITMAN. 

appointed morning setting in type, in a Brooklyn 
printing-office, a paper from the Democratic Reviezt', 
urging the superiority of Walt Whitman's poetry 
over that of Tennyson, which he meant to print (as 
he did every thin g,/r^ and coji^ in full) in the appen- 
dix of his next edition. He still had on the working- 
man's garb, which (he said) he had been brought up 
to wear, and now found it an advantage to continue. 
It became plain to me as I passed along the streets 
and on the ferry with him, that he was a prince in- 
cognito amongst his lower-class acquaintances. Tliey 
met him continually, grasped his hand with enthu- 
siasm, and laughed and chatted (but on no occasion 
did he laugh, nor, indeed, did I ever see him smile). 
Having some curiosity to know whether this class of 
persons appreciated him at all, I privately said to a 
workman in corduroys, with whom I had seen him 
conversing, and whom he had just left : " Do you 
know who that man there is ? " " That be Walt 
Whitmian." ''Have you known him long ? " " Many 
a year." " What sort of a man is he ? " "A fus'- 
rate man is Walt. Nobody knows Walt but likes 
him ; nearly everybody knows him and — and loves 
him." There was a curious look about the fellow 
as he emphasized the word loi'cs, as if he were as- 
tonished at the success with which he had expressed 
himself. " He has written a book, has n't he ? " 
*' Not as ever I hearn on." Several times as we 
were crossing the waters about New York, I was 



IVALT WHITMAN. 1/5 

able to separate from him and put similar questions 
to artisans and others with whom I had seen him 
interchange greetings or words ; but I found none 
of them knew any thing about his writings, though 
all felt a pride in being acquainted with him. Noth- 
ing could surpass the blending of insouciance with 
active observation in his manner as we strolled 
along the streets. '' Look at that face ! " he ex- 
claimed once as we paused near the office of the 
Herald. I looked, and beheld a boy of perhaps 
fifteen years, with certainly a hideous countenance, 
the face one-sided, and one eye almost hanging out 
of a villainous low forehead. He had a bundle un- 
der his arm. " There," said Walt, "is a New York 
reptile. There 's poison about his fangs, I think." 
We watched him as he looked furtively about, and 
presently he seemed to see that we had our eyes 
on him, and was skulking off. At that my com- 
panion beckoned to him, and after a little suc- 
ceeded in bringing him to us, when we found that 
he was selling obscene books. At the Tombs 
prison we went among the prisoners, and the con- 
fidence and volubility with which they ran to him 
to pour out their grievances, as if he were one in 
authority, was singular. In one man's case he 
took a special interest. The man, pending trial 
for a slight offence, had been put into a very 
disagreeable and unhealthy place. Hearing his ac- 
count, Walt turned about, went straight to the 



176 IV ALT WHITMAN'. 

governor of the prison, and related the matter — ■ 
ending thus, '' In my opinion it is a damned 
shame." The governor was at first stunned by thir, 
in an outsider, and one in the dress of a laborer, 
then he eyed him from head to foot as if question- 
ing whether to commit him ; during which the 
offender stood eying the governor in turn with a 
severe serenity. Walt triumphed in this duel of eye- 
shots, and, without another word, the governor 
called an officer to go and transfer the prisoner to 
a better room. I have often remembered the oath of 
Walt Whitman on this occasion as being one of the 
most religious utterances I have ever heard. 

Henry Thoreau visited Walt Whitman in 1856 ; 
and I find in his posthumous *' Letters" edited by 
R. W. Emerson, two that were addressed to the 
poet, giving him good advice in the matter of read- 
ing, and especially, it would seem, answering some 
questions about Oriental books. In another letter, 
written by Thoreau to a friend soon after the visit 
to which I have referred, he says, "That Walt 
Whitman, of whom I wrote to you, is the most in- 
teresting fact to me at present. I have just read 
his second edition (which he gave me), and it has 
done me more good than any reading for a long 
time. There are two or three pieces in the book 
which are disagreeable, simply sensual. It is as if 
the beasts spoke. Of course Walt Whitman can 
communicate to us no experience, and if we are 



WALT WHITMAN. 177 

shocked, whose experience is it that we are re- 
minded of ? * * * He occasionally suggests 
somethins; a little more than human. Wonderfully 
like the Orientals, too, considering that when I 
asked him if he had read them, he said, * No : tell 
me about them.' Pie is apparently the greatest 
democrat the world has seen." 



CHAPTER XIL 

BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Prof. Boyesen's reminiscences — Taylor's wonderful memory — His 
frankness and cheerfulness— Various anecdotes — His last days. 

In a paper written for Lippincotf s Magazine 
shortly after the death of the poet-traveller, 
Prof. Hjalmar H. Boyesen contributed the 
following 

REMINISCENCES OF BAYARD TAYLOR, 

It was in October, 1873, that I saw Bayard 
Taylor for the first time. He was then staying with 
his brother-in-law in Gotha, but paid frequent visits 
to Leipsic for the purpose of examining the famous 
collection of Goethe editions and manuscripts then 
belonging to the publisher Salomon Hirzel, but re- 
cently bequeathed by him to the library of the Uni- 
versity of Leipsic. I too had a letter of introduc- 
tion to Herr Hirzel, and cherished a vague hope 
that he would, after some preliminary remarks on 
my part, volunteer to show me his Goethe treasures, 

178 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 1 79 



In this, however, 1 was disappointed. He evi- 
dently chose to look upon my interest in his great 
countryman as youthful eccentricity. I had no 
gray hairs as yet, nor was I bald ; how, then, could 
I know any thing about Goethe ? 

Der amerikanische Dichter, Taylor, he remarked 
en passant, was at present studying the collection 
with much care, and meant in time to publish the 
results of his investigations. Without further par- 
leying I took my leave, and met a gentleman who 
had been pointed out to me as Bayard Taylor, on 
the sidewalk about fifty steps from the house. I 
had a strong temptation to introduce myself, but 
lacked courage. I thought of Hans Christian An- 
dersen's unhappy experience when he introduced 
himself to Jacob Grimm. 

In the autumn of the following year (1874) I met 
Mr. Taylor at the Century Club in New York, 
where, in a corner which in time will become 
historic, he sat surrounded by his friends E. C. 
Stedman, R. H. Stoddard, S. S. Conant, and A. R. 
MacDonough. A few months later Mr. Taylor 
delivered a course of lectures on German litera- 
ture at Cornell University, and I then hnd the privi- 
lege of daily association with him. We spent long 
evenings together on the piazza of a common friend, 
whence a magnificent view stretches northward over 
the broad green valley and the glorious lake. We 
smoked many a peaceful cigar, discussing all the 



l80 BAYARD TAYLOR. 

while our common European experiences and in- 
dulging in desultory praise or criticism of brother 
authors. I then discovered for the first time the 
enormous retentive power of Mr. Taylor's memory. 
He could quote by the hour English, German, Ital- 
ian, and even Swedish poetry, and apparently have 
inexhaustible treasures still in reserve. I remember 
on one occasion we were debating the merits of the 
various translations of Tegner's "Frithjof's Saga," 
and I v^/'as maintaining that after Mr. Longfellow's 
exquisite rendering of " The Temptation " and a 
few other separate poems, no poetaster who chose 
to translate the whole v/ork had any right to try his 
unskilled hand on these, but ought simply to incor- 
porate Mr. Longfellow's renderings — of course with 
proper acknowledgment of their source. "And 
still," I added, '' there is in single passages of the 
original a flavor so subtle that even so sensitive an 
artist as Longfellow fails to catch it. It is so fleet- 
ing that it utterly refuses to be transferred into 
another tongue." 

And I began to quote : 

Strax ar gamle kungen vaken : " Myeket var den somn mig 

vad ; 
Ljufligt sofver man i skuggau, skyddad af den tappres svard — 

Here my memory failed me, and Mr. Taylor 
promptly continued : 

Dock hoor ar ditt svard, o framling ? blixtens broder, hvar ar 
ban ? 



BAYARD TAYLOR. l8l 

Hvem hor skilt er, I som aldrig skulla skiljas fran hvarann ? " 

and so on for five or six verses. 

I have frequently heard Mr. Taylor complain that 
his memory was an inconvenience to him. He would 
read by chance some absurd or absolutely colorless 
verse, and it would continue to haunt him for days. 
One single reading sometimes sufficed to fix a poem 
indelibly in his mind. The first part of " Faust " I 
verily believe he could repeat from beginning to 
end ; at all events, I never happened to allude to 
any passage which he could not recite at a mo- 
ment's notice. Even the second part, with its eva- 
sive and impalpable meanings, he had partly com- 
mitted to memory ; or, rather, it had, without any 
effort of his own, committed itself to his memory. 

Many of my friends who enjoyed the privilege 
of associating with Bayard Taylor have similar anec- 
dotes to relate. His fund of comic and serio-comic 
verse from obscure poets was a constant source of 
amusement to all who came in contact Avith him. 
The poet Chivers, for instance — what wonderful 
things he has produced ! and how soon, but for Tay- 
lor, his ungrateful country would have forgotten him ! 

Two years later, when he was again lecturing at 
Cornell, he paid me a visit in my study, and after 
some preliminary conversation asked me to show 
him my manuscripts. I readily complied, and 
placed before him a large roll of papers, which 
he took up and began to inspect. 



1 82 BAYARD TAYLOR. 

"" What is this ? " he exclaimed—" apparently a 
life of Goethe and Schiller ! " 

I replied that it was merely scattered reflections, 
lecture-notes, and excerpts from books relating to 
the two German poets, and that in time I hoped to 
be able to arrange them into a connected biog- 
raphy. 

" But, my dear boy," he cried, " don't you know 
that you are stealing my thunder ? " 

I replied that I did not know that he was en- 
gaged in the same work, and if I had known it I 
should not flatter myself with the belief that I could 
compete with him. 

" Ah, that is all very nice and modest," he said, 
smiling, "but if you don't think you can compete 
with me or anybody under the sun, you should not 
be in a hurry about publishing your biography. 
Listen to me, and I will propose an arrangement to 
you. I have collected almost every thing that has 
been written about Goethe and Schiller, and I have 
several of the original editions. Your Goethe libra- 
'ry, although it is good as far as it goes, is, judg- 
ing by appearances, rather incomplete. Now, the 
next time you go to New York you can come to me 
and select whatever books you may want, and keep 
them as long as you need them. If there is any 
thing you need before then, only let me know and.I 
shall send it to you. No two men who labor earn- 
estly in a good cause can interfere with each other, 



BAYARD TAYLOR, 1 83 

and the more there is written about Goethe the bet- 
ter for me. It will prepare the public for the fact 
that Goethe's literary and scientific activity has a 
universal significance, and that the riddle of his 
life has as yet not been properly solved, Lewes' 
entertaining apology, in my opinion, hardly deserves 
the name of a biography." 

From this time forth I remained in constant com- 
munication v;ith Bayard Taylor, and the subject of 
our conversation and correspondence was almost 
invariably Goethe. If in the course of my Ger- 
man reading I discovered a characteristic anecdote 
of the great poet, I hastened to call his attention to 
it ; but I need not say that I was the recipient of 
such favors much more frequently than I bestowed 
them. Whenever I visited New York — which I did 
about every other month — we spent the most de- 
lightful evenings together in his library, discussing 
the subject of our common enthusiasm. During 
the last two years, while he was engaged in writing 
" Prince Deukalion," he never failed to read to me, 
in his splendidly sonorous voice, the last act he had 
finished, and this naturally furnished material for 
the discussion of many social and religious prob- 
lems. It must be evident to every one that he 
has in his poem attempted to define his social and 
poetic creed, and the hopeful and sanguine element 
of his character has there found its most complete 
expression. He endeavored, above all, to avoid 



1 84 BAYARD TAYLOR. 

dogmatism in his statement of his convictions, and 
to make his imagery so ample and expressive that 
it should hint at the philosophic truth, as a loose 
and gracefully flowing garment suggests, and by its 
general outline reveals, the form of the man within. 
I think he was himself astonished at the ease with 
which he wrote ; as soon as he was tuned up to a 
certain key the rhymes came of themselves, and a 
throng of ideas whirled through his mind, each 
clamoring for expression. The dogmatic rock 
which, at the outset, he was inclined to fear, was 
easily cleared : at the beginning of the last act, 
however, he came to a stand-still, and laid the poem 
aside for about six months. At the end of that 
time two different conclusions had suggested them- 
selves to him, and he had some difficulty in decid- 
ing between them. My recollection of the rejected 
plan is so vague that I shall not venture even to 
sketch it. 

What especially impressed itself upon my mem- 
ory on these occasions was the undisguised de- 
light of the poet in his own work. His mental per- 
ceptions were so delicate that he felt in an instant 
whether I was en rapport with him, and it was use- 
less before him to feign admiration. 

" Now," he would say, looking up quickly from 
his manuscript, '^ you have some objection to that, 
haven't you ? " 

" I simply didn't catch your meaning," I would 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 1 85 



answer. " If you will allow me to read the passage 
myself, I don't doubt I shall grasp the thought." 

One evening 1 found upon his table a fresh 
magazine which I had not yet seen containing some 
productions of mi I seized it, perhaps a little 

eagerly, and glanced furtively at a certain page 
which particularly interested me. 

** Ah," he cried, laughing, " I see you have not 
yet got over the first joy of seeing your thoughts 
temporarily immortalized in the monthly maga- 
zines." 

I confessed that I was not yet a stranger to the 
feeling he had described. 

"And I will make you a confession in return," 
he said. '' I have been a writer now for more than 
thirty years, and yet I have not entirely conquered 
that first youthful delight. 1 really believe that the 
first glance at a printed page of mine, and espe- 
cially at the first sight of a new book of mine, will 
never lose their delightful novelty to me if I live to 
be a hundred years old." 

People who knew Bayard Taylor but superficially 
were apt to accuse him of what they were pleased 
to call literary vanity. To me this charge seems to 
be based upon an imperfect comprehension of the 
rare siu'iplicity and earnestness of the man. Of 
course he believed in himself and in his own poetic 
mission, and he was not disposed to admit into the 
circle of liis more intimate friends anv one who 



1 86 BAYARD TAYLOR. 

questioned the genuineness of his poetic talent. 
But who likes to have his merits questioned in his 
own presence ? and who chooses his friends among 
his hostile critics? It is not to be denied that the 
conventional code of etiquette requires that a man 
should deprecate his own worth, and, especially in 
the case of an author, that he should put a very 
modest estimate upon his own productions. Bayard 
Taylor was too frank and honest to conform to this 
rule. If you told him that you thought his "Paean to 
the Dawn " in the " Songs of the Orient " was a won- 
derful poem, his fine eyes would light up v/ith pleas- 
ure, and he would describe to you in vivid colors 
the situation which had suggested the song to him. 
If you marvelled at the skill in the management of 
difficult metres which he had displayed in this or 
that passage of "Faust," he never answered, "Oh, 
that is nothing," or, " Do you think that so remark- 
able ?" but he exclaimed v/ith the emphasis of con- 
viction, " I am glad you give me credit for having 
done it well. It was by no means a happy inspira- 
tion : it was the result of hard and honest labor. I 
had rejected no less than seven versions before I 
found the one you admire." 

Once, as I came to return half a dozen commen- 
taries on "Faust" which I had borrowed from Bay- 
ard Taylor, I found him in his library chuckling to^ 
himself over a letter which he was writing. '" Listen 
to this," he said, after having extended to me his 



BAVAI?D TAYLOR. 1 8/ 

hand for a cordial grasp. " Isn't it delicious ? 

Here is a man in who writes to me in absolute 

earnest, asking me to compose an oration for him 
which he is to deliver as his own on a certain public 
occasion." 

He began to read, and I cannot resist the tempta- 
tion to quote the letter from memory : 

" Mr. Bayard Taylor : 

"Dear Sir : Understanding that you are a poet of some 
note, I write to you to ask you your prices for writing orations 
for public occasions. I have been requested by my fellow- 
citizens to make a speech of about an hour on the , 

and, as I have not time to prepare it to my satisfaction, I 
thought you might write it for me to memorize. Please send 
on your prices, and oblige 

" Yours truly, 

"X. X." 

Taylor answered in a strain of mock-seriousness, 
and if my memory serves me right his letter ran 
approximately as follows : 

"Mr. X. X.: 

" Dear Sir : Your favor of the inst. received. I 

should take great pleasure in complying with your request, but 
regret that the press of business compels me to decline. The 
Presidential campaign [1876], and the onerous duties it im- 
poses upon men of my line of business, absorb all my time and 
energ}'. I have at present no less than twenty-eight campaign 
orations to write — eighteen Democratic and ten Republican — 
and fresh orders are daily arriving. Add to this five temper- 
ance speeches, three funeral orations, and creeds and a com- 
plete doctrinal system for a new sect just to be established, 



1 88 BAYARD TAYLOR. 

and you will, no doubt, comprehend that I am justified in 
declining further engagements. My price is usually $18.35 
per thousand words, but owing to the great rush of business I 
have recently raised to $27.47. 

"In conclusion, allow me to recommend to you my friends 
Mr. E. C. Stedman, No. — Street, and Mr. R. H. Stod- 
dard, No. Street, either of whom, I have no doubt, 

would be willing and competent to supply exactly the kind of 
oration which you want. 

" Very truly yours, 

•' Bayard Taylor." 

I shall not attempt to give any detailed account 
of my intercourse with Bayard Taylor during the 
time that intervened between this incident and my 
meeting with him in Berlin in August, 1878. He 
had then just returned from a brief sojourn in the 
Thiiringerwald, where his family were still staying. 
He had volunteered to look over the revised proof 
of my " Goethe and Schiller," and it was this promise 
which had induced me to select the unpicturesque 
Berlin as my first stopping-place. I found him the 
same warm-hearted and sympathetic friend as al- 
ways, but, seeing that his appearance had under- 
gone some change which might be attributable to 
illness, I hesitated to present my proof-sheets. He 
did not feel quite well, he acknowledged, but a little 
rest and dieting would soon restore him to perfect 
health. What he particularly regretted was that his 
indisposition prevented him from attacking his bi- 
ography of Goethe, for which he had been collecting 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 1 89 

materials for so many years. He was burning with 
impatience to commit the first chapter to paper. 
Then he should feel at least that he was fairly 
started, and the continuation of the work would be 
a matter of course. It was unfortunate that the 
book had been so much talked about while it was 
yet in the embryonic state, and he had always taken 
occasion to contradict the statement, so frequently 
made by the American newspapers, that he had 
been sent to Germany in order that he might have 
an opportunity of writing it. After all this talk 
people naturally expected something very extraor- 
dinary, and he did not doubt that when the work 
finally saw the light the great majority of readers 
would be disappointed. They would not be pre- 
pared to accept his view of Goethe, because they 
did not possess the culture necessary for a proper 
estimation of his worth. To the student v/ho was 
familiar with the spirit of the German language and 
people he meant to make his conclusions inevitable. 
His book would have nothing in common with that 
of Lewes except, of course, the necessary reference 
to the same facts. He then related an anecdote, 
which I have printed once before, but which may 
bear repeating: Some years ago (in 1874, if I am 
not mistaken) Bayard Taylor called on Thomas 
Carlyle, and after having communicated to him his 
intention of writing a life of Goethe, asked him for 
an account of his own epistolary intercourse with 



190 BAYARD TAYLOR, 

the poet. Carlyle sat for a moment pondering, then 
looking up abruptly he said in a slow and emphatic 
tone, '' That man, sir, was my salvation." 

P'requently on fine afternoons Mr. Taylor would 
cause a profound sensation in the unfashionable 
little street where my wife and I had established 
our Bohemian head-quarters. Whenever his fine 
carriage, drawn by two stately horses (which, he 
confessed to me privately, he hired by the month), 
rolled away over the uneven cobble-stones, a con- 
gregation of female heads would appear, scattered 
at irregular intervals over the fafades of the tall 
stone buildings, and four or five self-commissioned 
messengers .would come thundering on our door, 
announcing with breathless excitement, '' Seine Ex- 
cellenz, der amerikanische Minister." I felt that 
v/e rose immensely in the estimation of our Teu- 
tonic neighbors after each of these visits, and when 
Mr. Taylor was seen descending the stairs with my 
wife on his arm and politely helping her into the 
carriage, our landlady made a rash wager of twenty- 
five cents v/ith the man who furnished our dinners 
that we belonged to the American nobility. When 
we disclaimed any such honor she consoled herself 
with the reflection that for some important reason 
we travelled incognito. " Great people often did," 
she was heard to observe to her antagonist, who 
daily insisted upon the payment of the wager. 

During these drives through the long green ave- 



BA YARD TA YLOR. I9I 

nues of the Thiergarten, Mr. Taylor was always in 
his happiest humor. 

" I feel like a boy who has unexpectedly got a long 
vacation," he exclaimed one day as we seated our- 
selves in the carriage. " I have had a horrible 
fear, and to-day for the first time I can breathe 
freely." 

On inquiring what had caused his fear he con- 
tinued : "You know I had begun to attribute all 
the pain and discomfort from which I have been 
suffering of late to some disorder of the kidneys, 
and I have always had a mortal dread of kidney 
diseases. Now my doctor assures me, after a thor- 
ough examination, that that organ is perfectly 
sound, and that my disorder is a simple catarrh of 
the stomach. This piece of intelligence lifts a stone 
from my breast. I assure you I have n't been so 
happy for many a day." 

I should not venture to report our conversations 
on these occasions in their chronological order, but 
a great many incidents of Bayard Taylor's foreign 
experience still survive in my memory with a sub- 
dued accompaniment of song of birds, glinting sun- 
shine, and gentle rustling of leaves. I then know 
that they were first told me during one of our drives 
in the Thiergarten. Thus, for instance, the follow- 
ing story, which emphatically refutes the recent 
assertion of one of our prominent journals that no 
one reads Mr. Taylor's novels : One day last sum- 



192 BA YARD TA YLOR. 

mer, while Mr. Taylor was travelling southward, he 
observed on stepping off the train the Princess Bis- 
marck. She beckoned to him, and after a few po- 
lite remarks informed him that her husband was on 
the train, and was at that moment reading a novel 
entitled " Joseph and his Friends." She had no doubt 
that he would be pleased to receive a visit from 
the author. Mr. Taylor accordingly announced 
himself, and was admitted to the special car in 
which the Chancellor was sitting. 

The latter greeted him cordially, and invited him 
to take a seat at his side. '' I was just reading your 
novel for the second time," he began, " and I like it 
more and more. But there is one serious mistake 
in it. You let your villains escape far too easily. 
That is not poetic justice, nor any kind of justice, 
in my opinion," 

"I could not help thinking," remarked Taylor in 
relating the story to me, " that this criticism was 
profoundly characteristic of Bismarck." 

Of Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Taylor had rather a 
more favorable opinion than the majority of his 
countrymen. At a dinner given in honor of the 
members of the Berlin Congress, he met the Eng- 
lish Premier for the first time. He was exceedingly 
polite, but apparently did not know Mr. Taylor in 
any other than his diplomatic capacity. In the 
course of the conversation the latter made the re- 
mark that he had known and admired Mr. Disraeli 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 1 93 

tlie man of letters before he had learned to admire 
Lord Beaconsfield the statesman : being himself a 
member of the literary guild, he had formerly had 
the honor of claiming Lord Beaconsfield as a col- 
league. 

His lordship seemed a little puzzled at this, and 
did not immediately reply. "Ah," he exclaimed 
after a moment's reflection, " you are Bayard Tay- 
lor, who has translated " Faust " and written so 
many deligiitful books. Of course I know you 
very well." 

During the months of September and October, 
Mr. Taylor's illness began to assume a more serious 
character. He suffered the most excruciating pains 
in his side, and the doctors changed the location of 
his disorder, and now declared that it was his colon 
which was affected. Nevertheless, he remained 
bravely sanguine, and so persistently cheerful as 
almost to dispel the apprehensions of his friends. 
"I wish," he exclaimed one day in the midst of a 
groan, " that this trouble Avith the colon would soon 
come — ah! — to a period." 

I have especially a painfully vivid recollection of 
an evening I spent with him in his bedroom during 
the second week of October. He lay outstretclied 
on a narrow German bed, every now and then 
pressing his hands violently against his side, while 
endeavoring to stifle a groan. I rose several times 
to go, thinking that my presence might cause him 



194 BAYARD TAYLOR, 

inconvenience. But he begged me earnestly to 
stay. *' I want you to talk to me," he said. '^ Talk 
about any thing under the sun — about Goethe, 
socialism, politics, or, in fact, any thing. I am not 
so ill as you think, and it does not hurt me to talk." 

We accordingly discussed a number of topics, 
among others Tourgueneff, Auerbach, Spielhagen, 
etc. I happened to suggest, I do not know how, 
that it would soon be incumbent upon Taylor to 
write his autobiography, as otherwise a great deal 
of valuable and interesting information both about 
himself and about other prominent men would be 
lost. 

"I have thought of that frequently," he replied ; 
" and if it were not for my life of Goethe I should 
feel tempted to go to work immediately. By the 
way, do you know any thing more fascinating than 
a great white virgin sheet of paper ? It has always 
possessed a strong charm for me from the time I 
was a boy. I feel such a temptation to scribble it 
all over with my thoughts, which may not always 
enhance its value. But speaking of the autobi- 
ography, I think it would be a very easy and delight- 
ful task. I have always been in the habit of writing 
elaborate descriptions to my wife of whatever has 
happened to me during her absence, and thus a 
great many important incidents of my life have 
been chronicled. She has kept all my letters, and, 
as every thing is very clearly and coherently written, 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 19S 

I think my biographer, whether it be myself or 
some one else, will not encounter much difficulty in 
recording the latter half of my life. If only this 
annoying infirmity would leave me ! If it were 
something serious, I might have some patience 
with it, but to have all this discomfort for the sake 
of a miserable colon is positively unendurable." 

The fearful pun which has persisted in haunting 
me these many months seemed under the circum- 
stances grave and pathetic. I smiled faintly, but I 
could not laugh ; for I feared that the doctors, for 
some reason, thought it best to deceive him, and 
that his malady was more alarming than lie 
imagined. 

"Do you know," he resumed after a while, 
" Count Usedom sent me the other day a splen- 
did mask of Goethe — not a death-mas];, but one 
taken from the living face. It is full of character, 
is superbly modelled, and has the most expressive 
wrinkles. Ask my wife to show it to you before 
you go. If I could have a few copies taken of it, I 
should like to give you one." 

'* It is odd," he resumed after a while, " how 
deeply rooted the idea is among our people, that 
because a man is a good novelist he must neces- 
sarily be a bad poet or dramatist, and if he is a 
good poet his novels or his dramas deserve only 
censure. A man like Goethe, whose rich nature 
demanded such manifold and various cxprcs-icn, 



196 BA YARD TA YLOR. 

would never be comprehended by our reviewers. 
They would damn '' Faust " because " Werther " had 
been a success. * Now, you made such a hit with 
your novel,' they would say, ' why don't you stick to 
that in which you have excelled, instead of trying 
your unskilled hand on something which you don't 
understand ? ' Novel-writing, poetry, travels, the 
drama, are conceived to be each a separate trade, 
and to be a poet and a novelist at the same time is 
in the eyes of our critics about as anomalous as it 
would be to combine the practice of law and medi- 
cine or to profess equal skill in carpentry and shoe- 
making. The Germans have a much nobler con- 
ception of the vocation of a man of letters. If he 
is an imaginative writer, no matter of what kind, 
they call him Dichter, and they leave the whole 
field of imaginative writing at his disposal. If 
Paul Heyse, who began as a novelist, writes a 
drama or a poem, it does not in the least disturb 
them. So also Freytag has gained an equal suc- 
cess on tlie stage and as a writer of romances. 
Goethe and Schiller would have been at a loss to de- 
fine their proper specialty. Their vocation was 
that of Dichter^ and they selected the form which 
suited best the idea they wished to develop. Their 
occasional hesitation between two literary forms 
thus becomes perfectly intelligible," 

I asked Mr. Taylor whether he had not a per- 
sonal grievance against our reviewers for under- 



BA YARD TA YLOR. 1 97 

estimating the value of his poems and persisting 
in extolling him in his capacity of traveller. 

" I '11 be frank with you," he answered, *' and con- 
fess that nothing has annoyed me more than the 
incessant reference to me in newspapers and lect- 
ure-bills as ' Bayard Taylor, the Great Traveller.' 
During my last lecture-tour through the West I dis- 
covered how firmly I was lodged in the minds of 
the American people as a traveller : every man who 
introduced me made some plain allusion to my 
early vagabondism, and every farmer or farmer's 
daughter who came up to shake hands with me after 
the lecture informed me that he or she had read 
my travels ' with so much interest.' I often think 
of myself as an artist v/ho on account of poverty 
was obliged to make his start in life as a brick- 
layer. When he had in this way gained the means 
to supplement his deficient culture, he began to 
model in clay and to make statues in marble. He 
would have preferred to omit altogether the disci- 
pline of bricklaying, but circumstances had com- 
pelled him to accept it : he knew from the begin- 
ning that sculpture was his proper calling. Now, 
if this sculptor shows himself a worthy member of 
the artistic guild and produces work of artistic 
merit, is it fair to be for ever saying to him : 
* You were such an excellent bricklayer ! Why 
didn't you continue to lay bricks?' That is ex- 
actly what the American public arc continually 



198 BA YARD TA YLOR, 

saying to me. I haven 't a particle of pride in my 
books of travel. They make no artistic pretension, 
and if I have no other title to remembrance, I shall 
be content to be forgotten." 

At the risk of violating the chronological order I 
shall take the liberty to relate an incident which is 
recalled to me by what I have just written. Two 
or three years ago, when I was dining with Bayard 
Taylor at the house of a common friend, one of the 
guests present persisted in turning the conversation 
on sun-myths. Whatever was said served in some 
way as an excuse for introducing a sun-myth ; his- 
tory, mythology, religion, all resolved themselves into 
sun-myths. Bayard Taylor listened, but had hither- 
to contributed but little to the discussion. 

^* Did it ever occur to you," he said gravely, ad- 
dressing himself to the myth-maker, '' why the name 
Smith is so common in almost all countries — in Ger- 
many, England, America, and Scandinavia ? " 

Some one suggested that it was because the trade 
of blacksmith was the most indispensable among 
primitive nations, and that the man was named after 
his trade. 

" Oh, no," said Mr. Taylor, still with the utmost 
gravity : " I don't think that accounts for it. The 
name Smith is obviously a contraction of Sun- 
myth — Sumyth, Smyth, Smith. Now, isn't that 
convincing?" 

We all burst into a hearty laugh, and the sun- 



BA YARD TA YLOR. 199 



myths were temporarily dismissed. The ingenious 
derivation of the name which is never loved by its 
possessors naturally led to a discussion of etymology 
and the freaks of phonetic corruption. The con- 
versation was once more in danger of assuming 
a too exclusively professional tone, when a happy 
inspiration of Mr. Taylor's again camq to our 
rescue. 

" Do you know," he said, turning to our ety- 
mologist, " what is the derivation of the word 
restatwant ? " 

" It is of course the Latin verb restaicrare, ' to 
restore,' ' to invigorate,' " answered the latter 
unhesitatingly. 

" No, you are quite mistaken," rejoined Taylor 
with a twinkle in his eye. " Restaurant is derived 
from res, ' a thing,' and faun/s, ' a bull,' — a bully 
thing." 

It was on the evening of October 13th that we 
went to take leave of our friends at the American 
Legation. We found jMr. Taylor in his library, 
seated in an easy-chair, with a shawl wrapped about 
his limbs. He was obliged to remain in the same 
position, and it was evident that every movement 
caused him pain. Nevertheless, his conversation 
was very animated, and he scattered his bright little 
remarks about him with his usual lavishness. He 
had just finished furnishing the Legation, and invited 
us to make the round of the rooms with Mrs. Taylor. 



200 BA YARD TA YLOR. 

On our return he related a number of odd expe- 
riences he had had with German tradesmen, who 
could not be made to understand that there was any 
other way of doing a thing than the German way. 
Their bland stupidity was highly exasperating. He 
had tried to demonstrate to them that a bed ought 
to offer certain conveniences for repose, and that a 
man of his size needed a longer bed than a man of 
five feet eight. Nevertheless, all German beds 
seemed to be made on the supposition that this 
was the normal height of a man, and that if he were 
taller it was an accidental malformation which he 
must expect to suffer for. In ordering his beds he 
(Taylor) had particularly emphasized this necessity 
of prolonging them beyond the German " measure 
of a man," but all his efforts in this direction had 
proved futile, and now he would have to return the 
useless things, which would involve another battle 
with German prejudice and German tradition. The 
creed of the Teutonic cabinet-maker might be ex- 
pressed as follows : " The man must be made for 
the bed, not the bed for the man." 

As we rose to go, Mr. Taylor handed me a letter 
of introduction to his friend Gustav Freytag at 
Siebleben, near Gotha. 

" I shall onlysay auf Wiedersehen.^* he said as he 
shook our hands cordially ; " for of course you will 
be here next summer." 

Those were the last words I ever heard him utter. 



BAYARD TAYLOR. 20I 

From the hall, where we lingered for some moments, 
I looked again through the half-open door at his 
noble, manly face, Mrs. Taylor, who had accom- 
panied us out, confessed to us, with a little trembling 
in her voice, that her husband's condition was very 
alarming to her — that she could not be quite as 
sanguine as he. The doctors had now decided 
that he was threatened with inflammation of the 
liver, and that he must immediately start for the 
baths of Carlsbad : the waters there were a uni- 
versally accepted remedy for liver complaint. 

Some two months later (December 21st) we were 
standing on the upper balcony of the Villa Albani, 
outside the walls of Rome. It was a glorious sunny 
afternoon ; the green Campagna rolled away in stately 
monotony toward the horizon, and the Alban Moun- 
tains defined themselves lightly, through a bluish mist, 
against the sky. Then an American friend entered, 
and on seeing me called out, " Bayard Taylor is 
dead ! " 

The scene is indelibly engraved upon my memory 
— the bluish mountains and the Campagna gleam- 
ing in the subdued sunshine, and the many domes 
looming against the sky. The name of my friend 
and my regret at his loss have henceforth some 
strange association with the classical soil and the 
Roman sky. It is as if I had seen him there for 
the last time, and there bidden him the last good- 
bye. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 

Anecdotes and personal sketches— Swinburne and Browning— An 
evening with Swinburne— Oscar Wilde— The idiosyncrasies of the 
London aesthete. 

"WTR. ALGERNON CHARLES SWIN- 
BURNE, according to an article in the 
Galaxy^ contributed by a personal friend, is 
a member of the English aristocracy, his father^ 
Admiral Swinburne, and his mother, Lady 
Jane Ashburnham, both belonging to a very 
exclusive set, composed of Catholics of old- 
blood, who form a clique of their own some- 
what like that of the ancient Codini family at 
P^lorence. The poet v/as himself educated in 
France, '* in the Ultramontane fashion," but 
he seems to have bravely gotten over the in- 
fluences of his early training, since he is now 
distinguished for his " intense hatred of estab- 
lished religion and moral codes." From the 
Ultramontane school in France he went to Ox- 

202 



ford. While there he commenced a correspon- 
dence with Charles Baudelaire and made the 
acquaintance of Lord Houghton, who even 
then declared he had met the poet of the fut- 
ure. Leaving Oxford without a degree, he 
paid a visit to Florence, on a sort of pilgrimage 
to see Landor, for whom he had an enthusias- 
tic admiration. Since his return he has lived 
principally in London, where he affects the 
companionship of artists and men of letters, and 
keeps himself clear of the scented crush called 
London society. He has not much taste, we are 
told, for the brainless dancing girls who fill up 
the English salons and who have nothing to 
recommend them but personal beauty, polished 
manners, and agile limbs. He is, nevertheless, 
of opinion that v/omen are the only fit com- 
pany for a man of intellect, and that old 
women are the best. Mr. Swinburne is a poet 
in character. He is not as other men are, and 
yet is never guilty of affecting eccentricity. 
He does not converse, he is either silent (it 
is the silence of an observer) or, like Cole- 
ridge, pours forth. When excited, his flow 
of language and splendor of imagery are 
alone sufficient to prove that he is a genius. 
He is willing to recite his poems before pub- 
lication. His voice is monotonous, he into7ies 



204- SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 

— but it is very earnest. Before the first series 
of his poems and ballads came out he kept 
them in a fire-proof box, in loose sheets, and, 
plunging his arm in up to his elbow, used to 
bring out his favorites. " Have you heard 
Sappho?" was a common question among his 
friends. " Sappho " was the name that 
" Anactoria " v/ent by. " We did not think 
that he would ever dare to publish this poem 
with ' Dolores,' ' The Leper,' " etc. 

The following curious little anecdote in 
regard to the poet is told by a correspond- 
ent of Appletoiis Jom'nal, 

Having received an invitation to dinner at a cer- 
tain house, he arrived in due course. It was ob- 
served that he was rather excited and strange in 
manner, but as he is known to have a singularly 
high-strung, nervous temperament, no particular at- 
tention v/as paid to this circumstance. Dinner went 
Off in the usual way. The guest of the evening 
was particularly brilliant ; his rapid, discursive 
conversation never ceased. After dinner, in the 
drawing-room, he consented to read some sonnets 
from his most recently published volume, and he 
was good enough to expound in most eloquent and 
luminous language the subtler meanings of these 
poems a.nd their connection with each other. His 



SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 205 

audience were delighted. Here and there, of course 
there was a touch of extravagance in his speecii, 
but to a poet some poetic license must be granted. 
Before going he requested the lady of the house to 
accept the volume, and inscribed her name in it. 
All this was very well, but some two or three days 
afterward he called upon his host, and immediately 
began to pour forth a whole string of apologies. 
He had mislaid the card — he had mistaken the 
night — he had had to go down into the country. 
This astonished person now discovered that his 
guest of the evening was absolutely in ignorance of 
his ever having been near the house, that he had 
come to apologize for having neglected the invita- 
tion, and that he was anxious that the lady of the 
house should accept a copy, to be sent from the 
publishers, of the very book which he himself had 
given her. 

From my knowledge of the author of " Cha,ste- 
lard" [continues our correspondent], I have not the 
smallest doubt that the above story is true. Mr. 
Swinburne is one of the most nervous men — he is 
very slightly built, and not more 'han five feet two 
in height — you could possibly imagine. I shall 
never forget seeing him at the poetic readings given 
by the poet Buchanan, some years ago, in the 
Hanover-Square Rooms. There, in a corner, his 
intellectual face now wearing a scowl, now a beatific 
expression, as he was pleased or displeased with his 



206 SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 

brother poet's elocution, did he sit twirling his fin- 
gers and thumbs in a ludicrously excited way. Ere 
long he became the observed of every one. " Who 
is that?" whispered a mercantile friend to me, nod- 
ding toward him. " That," replied I, wishing to 
surprise the man of figures, ^' is one of our greatest 
poets, Mr. Swinburne." " Indeed ! " was the reply. 
"Well, I 've always heard that poets were a rum lot ; 
now I 've no doubt about it !" 

Mr. Swinburne's sense of humor is deficient, 
and it is therefore not surprising that his 
ardent temperament should frequently lead 
him into ludicrous extravagancies. Not very 
long ago he excited the laughter of all England 
by bringing with him, to a public banquet given 
in honor of Robert Browning, a footstool which 
he insisted on placing at the master's feet and 
solemnly seating himself thereon. The humor 
of the situation was no doubt fully appreciated 
by the elder poet, who, in his every-day aspect, 
is a thoroughly common-sensible man of the 
world. Browning, on his side, has a warm lik- 
ing for Swinburne, but he recognizes his de- 
ficiencies as well as his merits. "You foolish 
boy !" he is represented as saying to him on 
one occasion, with a playful shake of the finger, 
"what do you mean by prostituting such a 
splendid genius?" 



SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 20/ 

A contributor to Lippincotf s Magazine^ who 
veils her personaHty under the transparent ini- 
tials of L. C. M., gives the following descrip- 
tion of 

AN EVENING WITH SWINBURNE. 

I had often heard in London society of Swin- 
burne's matchless eloquence, but, though I had met 
him before, I had really formed no definite idea of 
him until, a few weeks ago, I passed an evening in 
his company, in the pleasant study of Philip Bourke 
Marston, the poet. There were present only Miss 
Marston, the two poets, and myself. Swinburne 
has been said by an enthusiastic literary lady of 
London to be " the only poet who looks like a 
poet." Perhaps I do not quite understand what it 
is to look like a poet, for I should have said that 
Mr, Marston equally came up to this somewhat fan- 
ciful ideal ; but it is true that when Swinburne is at 
his best he has a wonderful look of inspiration. lie 
is not very tall, and is rather slight tlian otherwise 
in figure. His forehead is almost disproportionately 
large as compared with the rest of his face. Under 
it glow his great, luminous eyes, uncertain in color, 
because for ever changing with his thoughts. His 
hair is of that dark red which Titian loved to paint. 
His complexion is fair,^and his mouth ratlier small 
and extremely gentle in expression. 

He had brought that evening, at Mr. Marston's 



208 SW/NBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 

request, some of the proofs of his new volume of 
*' Poems and Ballads," which he read to us. He 
prefers reading his own poetry to hearing it read by 
others ; and certainly his reading is most charac- 
teristic. It seems, perhaps, a little mannered at first, 
until he gets into the swing of his own inspiration ; 
then he takes you with him, and bears you out on 
the free wings of his song till you forget time and 
space, and sit as under a spell. I think — whatever 
difference of opinion may exist as to Swinburne's 
rank among the great poets of the world — there can 
be no difference of opinion as to his wonderful mas- 
tery of v/ords and of rhythm. The sensuous delight 
one takes in his mere music is in itself an enchant- 
ment. And you never so feel this marvellous music 
as when he is reading — or rather chanting — his own 
words. 

After the proofs had been laid aside came a dis- 
cussion of Charlotte Bronte, apropos of the brill- 
iant Bronte monograph recently published by Swin- 
burne. In the poet's eyes, Jane Eyre has no fault. 
To suggest that she might have been in any wise 
more noble was sufficient to rouse him to passionate 
eloquence in her defence. But with him defence, 
like denunciation, is always passionate ; for all his 
likes are intense, and his hates are equally strong. 
His contempt for the men and things he despises is 
refreshing in these days of lukewarm and well-regu- 
lated emotions. I think the very most lovable thing 



Sll'iyBL-J^iVE AND OSCAR WILDE. 209 

about him is his absolute frankness. With those 
whom he regards as friends he is as open as a 
child, and as ready to reveal his real self — a self 
fuller of sweetness and justice and generosity than 
any one will ever guess who judges him from his 
somewhat fiery newspaper controversies, or the com- 
ments of superficial observers. 

The most distinguished, or at least the best 
known, of Swinburne's poetical disciples, is 
Oscar Wilde, who has won his fame, however, 
more as a social leader of the new aesthetic 
movement than as a poet. Some anecdotes 
illustrating the prominent characteristics of this 
gentleman are given in the subjoined letter to 
the Boston Herald, 

AN ENGLISH ESTHETE. 

The poet Wilde's dream of fair women began 
with Mrs. Langtry and ended with Mm^e. Modjeska, 
whom he worshipped with a certain chaste devotion 
infinitely touching, for, although he was "always" 
at the Polish star's receptions and first representa- 
tions, she treated him only with the same politeness 
and amiability which she is accustomed to extend 
to every one who is a habitue of her drawing-room. 
As for Mrs. Langtry, I believe that she viewed 
him in the light of a wild lunatic ; when his rhap- 



210 SWINBURNE AND OSCAR V/ILDE. 

sodies and dreams failed to amuse her, she was seen 
less frequently at his rose-colored afternoon teas, 
one peculiarity of v/hich was that the light was kept 
so dim in twilight atmosphere, accelerated by drawn 
blinds, that few people were able to recognize any- 
body they encountered there. Mrs. Langtry, some- 
times the bright, particular star of these mysterious 
gatherings, allowed, while there on one occasion, an 
American journalist of engaging frankness to be in- 
troduced to her. "Well, Mrs. Langtry," he said, 
" I 'm glad to have a look at you for myself, and I 
am also happy to say that, in my humble opinion, 
you are all that you 've been represented." The 
Jersey Lily smiled graciously and bowed her thanks 
for this " knock-down " compliment. Fortunately 
Oscar did not overhear it. Some time after our poet 
Wilde answered in an inquiry as to which of two 
ladies was Mrs. Langtry, with a curl of the lip and 
the following outburst : " VvHiat an absurd question ! 
If the sun shone I should know it were the sun ! " 
Sandwiched between " the sun that shone " and 
" the haunting eyes " of the gifted Modjeska was 
Mile. Sarah Bernhardt, at whose house in Prince's 
Gate Oscar established himself on a somewhat 
friendly footing as one of countless admirers. He 
converses sufficiently well in French to be able to 
carry on elaborate discussions with the then reign- 
ing favorite, but Sarah was not well enough posted 
as regards his precise status in the artistic world to 



SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 211 

understand exactly how to estimate these enuncia- 
tions, and her ideas about him and his works are of 
the vaguest possible description, or were at last ac- 
counts. If she were asked who he was she would 
be puzzled to answer, though she might safely de- 
scribe him as '' a great poet — a sort of Lord Byron 
and eau sucre'e^ Oscar has a mania for distinguished 
foreigners. He was present at some of the sittings 
which Mr. Henry Irving gave to Bastien Lepage, 
the painter, and acted, indeed, as interpreter be- 
tween the gifted Gaul and the tragedian, who does 
not speak French, but is content, in the language 
of Hon. Bardwell Slote, *'to wrestle with the ver- 
nacular." As an instance of Bastien Lepage's eye 
for detail, Oscar related the following anecdote : 
" I will paint in your glass of milk," said the 
Frenchman. " How did you know I drank milk ? " 
responded the tragedian. " Oh," was Bastien Le- 
page's reply, " I noticed an empty glass, that had 
had milk in, on a tray as I came up stairs." Oscar 
was quite content to translate at this interesting 
series of interviews. He admires the great trage- 
dian, and is the author of the now well-known line, 
"Don't you think that Irving's left leg is very ex- 
pressive ? " and, perhaps, even of the reply, *' Yes, 
and his left leg is so much more expressive than the 
right ! " Oscar is, however, impartial in his ad- 
miration of artists ; he has an eye for "the beauti- 
ful " in whatever mould ; and much more dignified 



212 SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 



than the note recently published, cis having been 
addressed to Miss Genevieve Ward, were the lines 
he penned to Mr. John McCuUough, after witness- 
ing his debut at " Old Drury," as Virginius. " It is 
long," he said, ^' since Vv^e have had here in England 
such a noble representative of the antique world." 

Although the poet Wilde has been accused of 
himself deliberately supplying Du Maurier with 
material for the Maudle and Postlethwaite cuts in 
Punchy including the " Let us try to live up to it " 
tea-pot, and the drawing, supplemented by the 
statement that he never bathed, because he dis- 
liked to see himself foreshortened in the water, it is 
almost certain that he really objected to Mr. Beer- 
bohm Tree's singularly accurate reproduction of 
him in the comedy of " Where's the Cat ? " at the 
Criterion theatre. Beerbohm Tree had studied 
Oscar's peculiarities very closely, and his caricature 
• — if it can be called such — was instantly recognized 
by press and public. I was present the night when 
" one of the two beauties," Lady Lonsdale, came to 
see this play, and the name " Oscar Wilde ! " passed 
from lip to lip the moment the clever Beerbohm 
Tree set foot upon the stage, one trouser-leg turned 
up at the bottom, after the manner of our poet, who 
did not rest until he had written the actor an indig- 
nant letter, in which he protested against his 
having taken advantage of " the accident " of their 
acquaintance. Mr. Beerbohm Tree, whose brother, 



SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 213 



by the way, is the author of the verses styled " The 
^Esthetic Maiden's Lament," thereupon replied 
that he had reproduced not an individual, but a 
type. About this time Oscar appeared in counter- 
feit presentment in the shop vrindows, arrayed in 
velvet garb, a Byronic collar, and his wonted placid 
smile. He also adopted a new article of attire, a 
furred overcoat, which he was known to wear hero- 
ically throughout receptions in hot rooms where 
every one else was stifling. Oscar was brave enough 
to attend the first performance of *' The Colonel," 
although he had been warned that "the aesthetic 
craze " was to be travestied ; he sat through the 
piece in solemn silence, very much disgusted at the 
bad taste of the Philistines, to v.'hom nothing is 
sacred ; but it is a question whether the people 
around him got more enjoyment out of the sport of 
tlie stage, or the drooping attitude of the only 
Oscar. " Patience " completed the work of the- 
atrical devastation, and the ridicule of the stage 
has absolutely frightened many aesthetes into every- 
day garb, albeit not into commonplace conversation. 
The undaunted Wilde was, last summer, however, 
at a supper party graced by the presence of the 
Prince of Wales, Mr. Arthur Sullivan, and T\lr. 
George Grossmith, at which the comedian just 
named consented to sing Budthorne's solo. The 
presence of the original of the " Pure young man " 
gave additional zest to the inimitable verses, and, 



214 SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 

at their close, the admirer of '' a bashful young 
potato or a not too French French bean " was 
dragged bodily up before H. R. H., with the words : 
" This is the man." Oscar's countenance, despite 
royalty's gracious consideration, expressed intense 
disgust. About this time, lock out for '' squalls ! " 
Derby day the announcement of forthcoming 
poems blossomed in placards on every bush and 
tree — literally, every stone wall in London-town ; 
they came in white and gold, and you knov/ how 
they were received — better here than in England. 
Apart from the fact that a prophet is not without 
honor save in his own country, there seemed to be 
an impression on this side, that Oscar Wilde was an 
out-and-out idiot, whereas it was known in England 
that he was only pretending to be one. His poem 
on " England," clever, if too Tennysonian, appeared 
originally in Edmund Yates' paper, the World, and 
was duly parodied in Truth. For a long time Mr. 
Labouchere ignored Oscar almost altogether, but 
he has lately espoused his side in a gratuitous insult 
put upon him by a college librarian who returned 
the volume of poems which Mr. Wilde had sent in 
response to a request. It was rumored at one time 
that Oscar would appear as an actor, but this prob- 
ably had its foundation in the fact that he has at 
least written a play, the ''Vera," which has yet to 
see the garLsh lamps, but may be done in this 
country. 



SWINBURNE AND OSCAR WILDE. 215 

One of the most scathing reviews, which appeared 
anent the white-and-gold poems, was printed in 
Vaniiy Fai?% for which publication Mr. Willie Wilde, 
brother of the aforesaid Oscar, writes theatrical criti- 
cisms. In this instance a journalistic Cain did not slay 
a poetic Abel. It was a stranger — or, at all events, 
not Willie — a young gentleman who has managed 
to assert himself, despite the supremacy of his more 
conspicuous relative. If ever Oscar wants to write 
as " Don Juan," here is the model in his own family, 
William is dark and well-looking, inclined to cor- 
pulency, and, alas ! belongs to the Lotus Club, 
Regent Street. Both men are good sons. The 
" Speranza " of Irish poetry is the pseudonym tliat 
hides the personality of Lady Wilde, whom mortal 
eyes of late years have not seen without at least one 
vail, and perhaps two. Lady Wilde is tall and 
ample in figure, and still clings to the crinoline ; in 
voluminous silken robes of black and crimson she 
moves about, balloon-like, as though impelled by 
some unknown agency. This accomplished gentle- 
man does not go much into society — not so much, 
that is to say, as Oscar, who cannot be a great deal 
at his present residence, Keats House, Tite Street, 
Chelsea, the combined house and studio of his alier 
fgo, Frank Miles, the artist. 



HAPTER XIV. 

THE BROWNINGS. 

Reminiscences of Miss Mitford and Miss Martineau — A day with tlie 
Brownings at Pratolino — Hawthorne's two meetings with the poet 
and his wife. 

IN May, 1836, Miss Mary Russell Mitford, 
writing home from London to her father 
about a visit she had made to the " giraffes and 
the Diorama," tells him that *' a sweet young 
woman, whom we called for in Gloucester 
Place, went with us — a Miss Barrett — who 
reads Greek as I do French, and has published 
some translations from ^schylus, and some 
most striking poems. She is a delightful 
young creature, shy and timid, and modest. 
Nothing but desire to see me got her out at 
q]1^ -x- * * gi^g jg gQ sweet and gentle, and 
so pretty, that one looks at her as if she were 
some bright flower; and she says that it is 
like a dream that she should be talking to me 
whose works she knows by heart." Miss Bar- 

216 



THE BROW.YINGS. 21/ 

rett was then twenty-seven ; but she had so 
youthful a look that Miss Mitford found it 
difficult to persuade a friend that this trans- 
latess of the *' Prometheus," the authoress of 
the *' Essay on Mind," was old enough to bo 
introduced into company ! 

In the "Autobiography " of another literary 
lady we get a glimpse of the future husband 
of Miss Barrett, as he appeared about the 
time Miss Mitford writes of. 

A poet whose face I was ahvays glad to see, 
[Harriet Martineau says], was Browning. It was 
in the days when he had not yet seen the Barretts. 
I did not know them either. When I was ill at 
Tynemouth, a correspondence grew up between the 
then bedridden Elizabeth Barrett and myself ; and 
a very intimate correspondence it became. In one 
of the later letters, in telling me how much better 
she was, and how grievously disappointed at being 
prevented going to Italy, she wrote of going out, of 
basking in the open sunshine, of doing this and that ; 
"in short," said she, finally, *' there is no saying 
v*'hat foolish thing I may do." The " foolish thing " 
evidently in viev/ in this passage was marrying 
Robert Browning ; and a truly wise act did the 
foolish thing turn out to be. I had never seen my 
correspondent, for she had gone to Italy before I 
left Tynemouth ; but I knew her husband well, 
about twenty years ago. It was a wonderful event 



2l8 THE BROWNINGS. 



to me— my first acquaintance with his poetry. Mr. 
Macreadyput " Paracelsus" into my hands, when I 
was staying at his house ; and I read a canto before 
going to bed. For the first time in my life, I passed 
a whole night without sleeping a wink. The un- 
bounded expectation I formed from that poem was 
sadly disappointed when " Sordello " came out. I 
was so wholly unable to understand it that I sup- 
posed myself ill. But in conversation no speaker 
could be more absolutely clear and purpose-like. 
He was full of good sense and fine feeling,- amidst 
occasional irritability ; full also of fun and harmless 
satire ; with some little affectations which were as 
droll as any thing he said. A real genius was 
Robert Brov/ning, assuredly ; and how good a man, 
how wise and morally strong, is proved by the suc- 
cessful issue of the perilous experiment of the mar- 
riage of two poets. They are a remarkable pair, 
whom society may well honor and cherish. 

The story of the marriage of these poets 
has been told in many ways, and the follow- 
ing article, written for Scribners Monthly, by 
Mrs. Elizabeth C. Kinney, and relating the 
tale as it fell from Mr. Brov/ning's own lips, is 
consequently of much interest. 

A DAY WITH THE BROWNINGS AT PRATOLINO, 

It was my privilege to live for years near by, and in 
intimate intercourse with, the divinity of Casa Guidi, 



THE BROWNINGS, 2ig 

— her whose genius has immortalized the walls as 
well as the windows of that antique palace ; for a tab- 
let has been inserted by the grateful Italians, whose 
cause she so eloquently espoused, in the grand en- 
trance wall, recording her name, deeds, and long 
residence there, with the tribute of their thanks and 
love. Yet I had not known the Brownings person- 
ally, in the more intimate sense of acquaintance- 
ship, till that blessed day, when, in the balm of a 
June morning, we started together in- an open car- 
riage for Pratolino, taking with us a man-servant, 
who carried the basket containing our picnic din- 
ner, of which only four were to partake. A larger 
party would have spoiled the whole. A more timid 
nature was never joined to a bolder spirit than in 
Elizabeth Browning. She fairly shrunk from obser- 
vation, and could not endure mixed company, 
though in her heart kind and sympathetic with all. 
Her timidity was both instinctive and acquired ; 
having been an invalid and student from her youth 
up, she had lived almost the life of a recluse ; thus 
it shocked her to be brought face to face with in- 
quisitive strangers, or the Avorld in general. On 
this very account, and because her health so rarely 
permitted her to make excursions of any kind, she 
enjoyed, as the accustomed do not, and the unap- 
preciative cannot, any unwonted liberty in nature's 
realm, and doubly v/ith a chosen few sympathetic 
companions, to whom she could freely express her 



220 THE BROWNINGS. 

thoughts and emotions. Like most finely-strung 
beings, she spoke through a changeful countenance 
every change of feeling. 

Never shall I forget how her face — the plain mor- 
tal beautiful in its immortal expression — lighted up 
to greet us as our carriage drove into the porte- 
cochere of Casa Guidi on that memorable morning. 
Simple as a child, the honest enjoyment which she 
anticipated in our excursion beamed through her 
countenance. Those large, dark, dreamy eyes — 
usually like deep wells of thought — sparkled with 
delight ; while her adored Robert's generous ca- 
pacity for pleasure showed even a happier front 
than ordinary, reflecting her joy, as we turned into 
the street and out at the city gate toward Pratolino, 
The woman of usually many thoughts and few 
words grew a talker under the stimulus of open 
country air ; while her husband, usually talkative, 
became the silent enjoyer of her vocal gladness, a 
pleasure too rarely afforded him to be interrupted. 
We, of choice, only talked enough to keep our im- 
provvisatrice in the humor of utterance. Every tree, 
every wayside flower, every uncommon stone or 
passing cloud, gave fresh impulse to her spirit, which 
verily seemed like an enfranchised bird's. On reach- 
ing the enchanting grounds of Pratolino — which 
royal love enchanted as long ago as the sixteenth 
century — we all began to talk of tlie past, till the 
present was animated by its spirit ; breathing beauty 



THE BROWNINGS. 221 

seemed stirring the leaves of green retreats, made 
for love ; inspiring the songs of numerous birds, 
whose musical aviours enjoy now unmolested those 
right royal groves ; vitalizing the gold and silver 
fishes which sport in those silver lakes, all uncon- 
scious of the rapturous faces once mirrored there. 
Even the climbing roses encircled those ancient 
walls with beauty, and conjured fragrant memories 
of a dead yet living past. As we neared the villa, 
no wonder that poetic fancy seized that enthusiastic 
group, and we saw the beautiful Bianca strolling 
among the flowers with her infatuated lover, her- 
self not more fond than ambitious to share his 
ducal crown. The very insects seemed whispering 
of that tragic romance, and our queen of song re- 
lapsed into dreams which we dared not disturb, till, 
threading our path silently along the winding ways, 
we at length entered a grove in the rear of the villa, 
where, with one accord, we paused for rest and re- 
freshment. By this time the reaction of languor 
after unwonted excitement came over Mrs. Brown- 
ing ; she almost fell prostrate on the grass, where 
she lay with closed eyes, a stone for her pillow, like 
Jacob in his dream, — and doubtless she also had a 
vision of the ladder on which the angels were de- 
scending and ascending, as her ministers. 

Withdrawing a short distance, so that our mel- 
lowed voices might not reach her, wh.ile lunch was 
being prepared under the trees, Robert Browning 



222 THE BROWNINGS. 

put on his talking-cap again, and discoursed, to two 
delighted listeners, of her who slept. After ex- 
pressing his joy at her enjoyment of the morning, 
the poet's soul took fire by its own friction, and 
glowed with the brilliance of its theme. Knowing 
well that he was before fervent admirers of his wife, 
he did not fear to speak of her genius, which he 
did almost with awe, losing himself so entirely in 
her glory that one could see that he did not feel 
worthy to unloose her shoe-latchet, much less to call 
her his own. This led back to the birth of his first 
love for her, and then, without reserve, he told us 
the real story of that romance, " the course of " 
which " true love never did run smooth." There 
have been several printed stories of the loves of 
Elizabeth and Robert Browning, and we had read 
some of these ; but as the poet's own tale differed 
essentially from the others, and as the divine genius 
of the heroine has returned to its native heaven, 
whilst her life on earth now belongs to posterity, it 
cannot be a breach of confidence to let the truth be 
known. 

Mr. Barrett, the father of Elizabeth, though him- 
self a superior man, and capable of appreciating his 
gifted child, was, in some sense, an eccentric. He 
had an unaccountable aversion to the idea of " mar- 
rying off" any of his children. Having wealth, a 
sumptuous house, and being a widower, he had 
somehow made up his mind to keep them all about 



THE BROWNINGS. 223 



him. Elizabeth, the eldest, had been an invalid 
from her early youth, owing partly to the great shock 
which her exquisite nervous organization received 
when she saw an idolized brother drown before her 
eyes, without having the power to save him. Grief 
at this event naturally threw her much within her- 
self, while shattered health kept her confined for 
years to her room. There she thought, studied, 
wrote ; and from her sick-chamber went forth the 
winged inspirations of her genius. These came 
into the heart of Robert Browning, and, nesting 
there, awakened love for " The Great Unknown," 
and he sought her out. Finding that the invalid 
did not receive strangers, he wrote her a letter, 
intense with his desire to see her. She reluctantly 
consented to an interview. He flew to her apart- 
ment, was admitted by the nurse, in whose presence 
only could he see the deity at whose shrine he had 
long worshipped. But the golden opportunity was 
not to be lost ; love became oblivious to any save 
the presence of the real of its ideal. Then and 
there Robert Browning poured his impassioned soul 
into hers, though his tale of love seemed only an 
enthusiast's dream. Infirmity had hitherto so 
hedged her about that she deemed herself for ever 
protected from all assaults of love. Indeed, she felt 
only injured that a fellow-poet should take advan- 
tage, as it were, of her indulgence in granting him 
an interview, and requested him to withdraw from 



224- THE BROWNINGS. 

her presence, not attempting any response to his 
proposal, which she could not believe in earnest. 
Of course he withdrew from her sight, but not to 
withdraw the offer of his heart and hand ; au con- 
traire, to repeat it by letter, and in such wise as to 
convince her how " dead in earnest " he was. Her 
own heart, touched already when she knew it not, 
was this time fain to listen, be convinced, and over- 
come. But here began the tug of war ! As a filial 
daughter, Elizabeth told her father of the poet's 
love, of the poet's love in return, and asked a 
parent's blessing to crown their happiness. At first, 
incredulous of the strange story, he mocked her ; 
but when the truth flashed on him, from the new 
fire in her eyes, he kindled with rage, and forbade 
her ever seeing or communicating with her lover 
again, on the penalty of disinheritance and banish- 
ment for ever from a father's love. This decision 
was founded on no dislike for Mr. Browning per- 
sonally, or any thing in him, or his family ; it was 
simply arbitrary. But the new love was stronger 
than the old in her — it conquered. On wings it 
flew to her beloved, who had perched on her win- 
dow, and thence bore her away from the fogs of 
England to a nest under Italian skies. The night- 
ingale who had long sung in the dark, with " her 
breast against a thorn," now changed into a lark — 
morning had come — singing for very joy, and at 
heaven's gate, which has since opened to let her in. 



THE BROWNINGS. 225 

The unnatural father kept his vow, and would never 
be reconciled to his daughter, of whom he was not 
worthy ; though she ceased not her endearing ef- 
forts to find her way to his heart again ; ever fear- 
ing that he, or she, might die without the bond of 
forgiveness having reunited them. Always cherish- 
ing an undiminished love for her only parent, this 
banishment from him wore on her, notwithstanding 
the rich compensation of such a husband's devo- 
tion, and the nev; maternal love which their golden- 
haired boy avrakened. What she feared, came upon 
her ! Her father died without leaving her even his 
pardon, and her feeble physique never quite recov- 
ered from the shock. Few witnessed the stronsc 
grief of that morally strong woman. I saw her after 
her first wrestling with the angel of sorrow, and per- 
ceived that with the calm token of his blessing, still 
she dragged a maimed life. 

To return to Pratolino : The poet's story of his 
love had sharpened appetite, and we gathered at the 
rustic table in the grove, where our queen, Eliza- 
beth, crowned the feast. Recovered by rest from 
the morning's fatigue, she was able to join, though 
not aga.a to lead, our conversation. Under the 
stimulus of appetizing viands, and good wine in 
moderation, Robert Browning's spirits overflowed, 
even to the confession of telling us their romance, 
receiving only from its heroine the slight punish- 
ment of her, "Robert, dear! how could you?" 



226 



After lunch we all went to the brow of the hill, and 
together looked out on that mavvellous view, 
backed by the Apennines in their afternoon glor)^ ; 
while before us lay dreamily, under a softening mist- 
veil, Florence the Beautiful ! — its massive palaces, 
v/ith their ponderous eaves ; its majestic Duomo ; 
its heaven-pointing Campanile, — that perfection of 
symmetry ; its arching bridges, spanning the classic 
Arno, which curved like a silver thread amidst all 
that scene of loveliness. There the past and the 
present met together ; terror and beauty embraced 
each other. All that Elizabeth Browning said, after 
gazing awhile in silence, was, '' How it speaks to 
us ! " Since then it has spoken to us again through 
the echo from her spirit ; we caught it even then, 
and though that spirit has since passed away, the 
echo of its own song has not died, shall not die ; 
Elizabeth Browning " was for all time ! " 

We returned to Florence just as the sun was set- 
ting behind the Tuscan hills, and the moon rising 
on our forward path as a welcome. When we rolled 
under the arched gateway of Casa Guidi, a tired 
voice said, faintly, " How I thank you ! " while in 
heartiest tone Robert Brov/ning repeated, " Ay, 
thanks for a real pleasure-day." As for us, we 
could only claim our right to all the thanksgiving, 
and respond, " Yes, a day to be remembered, and 
" recorded here ! 

Hawthorne met the Brownings in England, 



THE BROWNINGS. 227 

and again in Italy, and he has made a record 
of both meetings in his *' Note-Books.** The 
first occasion was at one of the famous literary, 
breakfasts given by Richard Monckton Milnes 
(the present Lord Houghton), of which Haw- 
thorne gives the following account. 

A LONDON LITERARY BREAKFAST. 

yuly 13, 1856. On Friday morning (nth) I took 
the rail into town to breakfast with Mr. Milnes. 
* * * Whether I was quite beyond rule I can- 
not say ; but it did not lack more than ten minutes 
of eleven when I \vas ushered up stairs and I found 
all the company assembled. However, it is of lit- 
tle consequence, except that if I had come early I 
should have been introduced to many of the guests, 
whom now I could only know across the table. 

Mr. Milnes introduced me to Mrs. Browning, and 
assigned her to me to conduct into the breakfast- 
room. She is a small, delicate woman, with ringlets 
of dark hair, a pleasant, intelligent, and sensitive face, 
and a low, agreeable voice. She looks youthful and 
comely, and is very gentle and lady-like. And so we 
proceeded to the breakfast-room, which is hung 
round with pictures ; and in the middle of it stood 
a large round table, worthy to have been King Ar- 
thur's, and here we seated ourselves without any 
question of precedence or ceremony. On one side 
of me was an elderly lady, with a very fme counte- 



228 THE BROWNINGS. 

nance, and in the course of breakfast I discovered 
her to be the mother of Florence Nightingale. One 
of her daughters (not Florence) was likewise pres- 
ent, Mrs. Milnes, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Nightin- 
gale, and her daughter were the only ladies at ta- 
ble ; and I think there were as many as eight or ten 
gentlemen, whose names — as I came so late-— I was 
left to find out for myself, or to leave unknown. 
Mrs, Browning and I talked a great deal during 
breakfast, for she is of that quickly appreciative 
and responsive order of women with whom I can 
talk more freely than with any man ; and she has, 
besides, her own originality, wherewith to help on 
conversation, though I should say not of a loqua- 
cious tendency. She introduced the subject of 
spiritualism, which, she says, interests her very 
much ; indeed, she seems to be a believer. Mr. 
Browning, she told me, utterly rejects the subject, 
and will not believe even in the outward manifesta- 
tions, of which there is such overwhelming evidence. 
We also talked of Miss Bacon, and I developed 
something of that lady's theories respecting Shake- 
speare, greatly to the horror of Mrs. Browning and 
that of her next neighbor, — a nobleman whose name 
I did not hear. On the whole, I like her the better 
for loving the man Shakespeare with a personal 
love. We spoke, too, of Margaret Fuller, who 
spent her last night in Italy with the Brownings ; 
and of William Story, with whom they have been 



THE BROWNINGS. 229 



intimate, and who, Mrs. Browning says, is much 
stirred about Spiritualism. Really, I cannot help 
wondering that so fine a spirit as hers should not 
reject the matter till, at least, it is forced upon her. 
I like her very much, 

Mrs. Nightingale had been talking at first with 
Lord Lansdowne, who sat next her, but by and 
by she turned to me and began to speak of London 
smoke. Then, there being a discussion about Lord 
Byron on the other side of the table, she spoke to 
me about Lady Byron, whom she knows intimately, 
characterizing her as a most excellent and exem- 
plary person, high-principled, unselfish, and now 
devoting herself to the care of her two grand- 
children, — their mother, Byron's daughter, being 
dead. Lady Byron, she says, writes beautiful verses. 
Somehow or other, all this praise, and more of the 
same kind, gave us an idea of an intolerably irre- 
proachable person ; and I asked Mrs. Nightingale 
if Lady Byron were warm-hearted. With some 
hesitation, or mental reservation, — at all events, not 
quite outspokenly, — she answered that she was. 

I was too much engaged with these personal 
talks to attend much to what was going on else- 
where ; but all through breakfast I had been more 
and more impressed by the aspect of one of the 
guests, sitting next to Milnes. He was a man of 
large presence, a portly personage, gray-haired, but 
scarcely as yet aged ; and his face had a remark- 



230 THE BROWNINGS. 

able intelligence, not vivid nor sparkling, but con- 
joined v/ith great quietude, — and if it gleamed or 
brightened at one time more than another, it was 
like the sheen over a broad surface of sea. There 
was a somewhat careless self-possession, large and 
broad enough to be called dignity ; and the more I 
looked at him the more I knew that he was a dis- 
tinguished person, and wondered who. He might 
have been a minister of state ; only there is not 
one of them who has any right to such a face and 
presence. At last — I do not know how the convic- 
tion came, — but I became aware that it was Ma- 
caulay, and began to see some slight resemblance 
to his portraits. But I have not seen any that is 
not wretchedly unworthy of the original. As soon 
as I knew him, I began to listen to his conversa- 
tion, but he did not talk a great deal — contrary to 
his usual custom. For I am told he is apt to en- 
gross all the talk to himself. Probably he may 
have been restrained by the presence of Ticknor 
and Mr. Palfrey, who were among his auditors and 
interlocutors, and as the conversation seemed to 
turn much on American subjects, he could not well 
have assumed to talk them down. I am glad to 
have seen him, — a face fit for a scholar, a man of 
the world, a cultivated intelligence. After we left 
the table and went into the library, Mr. Browning 
introduced himself to me — a younger man than I 
had expected to see, handsome, with brown hair. 



THE BROIVNIXGS. 23 1 

He is very simple and agreeable in manner, gently 
impulsive, talking as if his heart were uppermost. 
He spoke of his pleasure in meeting me, and his 
appreciation of my books ; and — which has not 
often happened to me — mentioned that the " Blithe- 
dale Romance " was the one he admired most. I 
wonder why. I hope I showed as much pleasure 
at his praise as he showed at mine ; for I was glad 
to see how pleasantly it moved him. 

Two years later, Hawthorne, in his " Italian 
Note-Books," makes the following entry in re- 
gard to 

A VISIT TO THE BROWNINGS IN CASA GUIDI. 

Florence, y^une 9, 185 8. — We went last evening, 
at eight o'clock, to see the Brownings ; and, after 
some search and inquiry, we found the Casa Guidi, 
which is a palace in a street not very far from our 
own. It being dusk, I could not see the exterioi; 
which, if I remember, Browning has celebrated in 
song ; at all events Mrs. Browning has called one 
of her poems "Casa Guidi Windows." The street 
is a narrow one ; but on entering the palace we 
found a spacious staircase and ample accommoda- 
tions of vestibule and hall, the latter opening on a 
balcony where we could hear the chanting of priests 
in a church close by. Browning told us that this 
was the first church where an oratorio had ever 



232 THE BROWNINGS. 

been performed. He came into the anteroom to 
greet us, as did his little boy, Robert, whom they 
call Pennini for fondness. The latter cognomen 
is a diminutive of Apennino, which was bestowed 
upon him at his first advent into the world because 
he v/as so very small, there being a statue in Flor- 
ence of colossal size called Apennino. I never saw 
such a boy as this before ; so slender, fragile, and 
spirit-like, — not as if he were actually in ill health, 
but as if he had little or nothing to do v/ith human 
flesh and blood. His face is very pretty and most 
intelligent, and exceedingly like his mother's. He 
is nine years old, and seems at once less childlike 
and less manly than would befit that age. I should 
not quite like to be the father of such a boy, and 
should fear to stake so much interest and affection 
on him as he cannot fail to inspire. 

Mrs. Browning met us at the door of the drawing- 
room and greeted us most kindly, — a pale, small 
person, scarcely embodied at all ; at any rate only 
substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers 
to be grasped, and to speak with a shrill yet sweet 
tenuity of voice. Really, I do not see how Mr. 
Browning can suppose that he has an earthly wife 
any more than an earthly child ; both are of the 
elfin race, and will flit away from him some day 
when he least thinks of it. She is a good and kind 
fairy, however, and sweetly disposed toward the 
human race, although only remotely akin to it. It is 



THE BROWNINGS. 233 

wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her 
cheek, how bright and dark her eyes. There is not 
such another figure in the world, and black ringlets 
cluster down her neck and make her face look the 
vv'hiter by their sable profusion. I could not form 
any judgment about her age ; it may range any- 
where within the limits of human life or elhn life. 
'\'hen I met her in London at Lord Houghton's 
breakfast-table she did not impress me so singularly ; 
for the morning light is more prosaic than the dim 
illumination of their great tapestried drawing-room ; 
and, besides, sitting next to her she did not have 
occasion to raise her voice in speaking, and I was 
not sensible what a slender voice she has. It is 
marvellous to me how so extraordinary, so acute, 
so sensitive a creature can impress us, as she does, 
with the certainty of her benevolence. It seems to 
me there were a million chances to one that she 
would have been a miracle of aciditv and bitter- 
ness. 

We were not the only guests. Mr. and Mrs. 

E , Americans, recently from the East, and on 

intimate terms with the Brownings, arrived after U5j ; 

also Miss F. H , an English literary lady whom 

I have met several times in Liverpool ; and lastly 
came the white head and palmer-like beard of Mr. 

[Bryant] with his daughter. Mr. Browning 

was very efficient in keeping up conversation with 
everybody, and seemed to be in all parts of the 



234 THE BROWNINGS. 

room and in every group at the same moment, a 
most vivid and quick-thoughted person, logical and 
common-sensible, as, I presume, poets generally are 

in their daily talk. Mr. as usual was homely 

and plain of manner, with an old-fashioned dignity, 
nevertheless, and a remarkable deference and 
gentleness of tone in addressing Mrs. Browning. I 
doubt, however, whether he has any high apprecia- 
tion either of her poetry or her husband's, and it is 
my impression that they care as little about his. 

We had some tea and some strawberries, and 
passed a pleasant evening. There was no very 
"noteworthy conversation : the most interesting topic 
being that disagreeable and now wearisome one of 
spiritual communications, as regards which Mrs, 
Browning is a believer and her husband an infidel. 

Mr. appeared not to have made up his mind on 

the matter, but told a story of a successful com- 
munication between Cooper the novelist and his 
sister, who had been dead fifty years. Browning 
and his wife had both been present at a'Spiritual 
session held by Mr. Hume, and had seen and felt 
the unearthly hands, one of which had placed a 
laurel wreath on Mrs. Browning's head. Browning, 
however, avowed a belief that these hands were 
affixed to the feet of Mr. Hume, who lay extended 
in his chair, with his legs stretched far under the 
table. The marvellousness of the fact, as I have 
read it, and heard it from other eye-witnesses. 



THE BROWNINGS. 235 

melted strangely away in his hearty gripe and at 
the sharp touch of his logic ; while his wife, ever 
and anon, put in a little gentle word of expostula- 
tion. 

I am rather surprised that Browning's conversa- 
tion should be so clear, and so much to the purpose 
at the moment, since his poetry can seldom proceed 
far without running into the high grass of latent 
meanings and obscure allusions. 

Later on Hawthorne speaks of meeting Mr. 
Browning at Mrs. Trollope's house, where he 
was *• very genial and full of life, as usual, but 
his conversation had the effervescent aroma 
which you cannot catch, even if you get the 
very words that seem to be imbued with it. 
Browning's nonsense is of a very genuine and 
excellent quality, the true bubble and efferves- 
cence of a bright and powerful mind ; and he 
lets it play among his friends with the faith 
and simplicity of a child. He must be an 
amiable man. I should like him much, and 
should make him like me, if opportunities were 
favorable." 



CHAPTER XV. 

CHARLES DICKENS. 

Blanchard Jerrold's reminiscences — A woman's gossip — The Dickens 
banquet described by an eye-witness. 

IT is generally agreed that Dickens has suf- 
fered in popular esteem by the publica- 
tion of Forster's Life. I do not very clearly see 
why. The impression which Mr. Forster gives 
of his hero is that of a bluff and hearty egotist, 
whose respect for his own abilities was as un- 
measured as it was sincere, and whose fondness 
for the striking and the melodramatic some- 
times allowed him to degenerate into vulgarity. 
But it needed no great keenness of vision to 
read these qualities between the lines of his 
books, and in any event they are minor defects ; 
they need not blind us to what was manly and 
generous and admirable in his character. His 
very egotism had no smallness or meanness 
about it — perhaps because it was so thorough- 
going. It was the egotism of a man who was 

236 



CHARLES DICKENS. 237 

too sure of himself to have any fear of rivalry, 
and who could afford to be generous. More- 
over, it was his natural disposition to be gen- 
erous. '^ Those v/ho knew him best and 
closest," says Blanchard Jerrold, "" saw how 
little he would ever produce to the outer world 
of the bright, chivalrous, engaging, and deep 
and tender heart that beat within his bosom. 
The well of kindness v/as open to mankind, and 
from it generations will drink ; but it was never 
fathomed," And Mr. Jerrold goes on to give 
the following 

REMINISCENCES OF DICKENS. 

Charles Dickens, as all writers about him have 
testified, was so graciously as well as lavishly en- 
dowed by Nature, that every utterance was sunny, 
every sentiment pure, every emotional opinion in- 
stinctively right, — like a v/oman's. The head that 
governed the richly-stored heart was wise, prompt, 
and alert at the same time. He communicated to 
all he did the delightful sense of ease with power. 
The air about him vibrated with his activity, and 
his surprising vitality. In a difficulty men felt 
safe merely because he was present. Most easily, 
among all thinkers it has been my fortune to know, 
was he master of every situation in which he placed 
himself. Not only because of the latent, conscious 



CHARLES DICKENS. 



power that was in him, and the knightly cheerful- 
ness which became the pure-minded servant of 
humanity who had used himself to victory ; but be- 
cause he adopted always the old plain advice, and 
deliberated well before he acted with the vigor 
which was inseparable from any activity of his. 

The art with which Charles Dickens managed 
men and v/omen was nearly all emotional. As in 
his books he drew at v/ill upon the tears of his 
readers, in his life he helped men with a spontane- 
ous grace and sweetness which are indescribable. 
The deep, rich, cheery voice ; the brave and noble 
countenance ; the hand that had the fire of friend- 
ship in its grip, — all played their part in comforting 
in a moment the creature who had come to Charles 
Dickens for advice, for help, for sympathy. When 
he took a cause in hand, or a friend under his wing, 
people v/ho knew him breathed in a placid sense of 
security. He had not only the cordial will to be of use 
wherever his services could be advantageously en- 
listed, but he could see at a glance the exact thing 
he might do ; and beyond the range of his convic- 
tion as to his ovrn power, or the limit of proper ask- 
ing or advancing, no power on earth could move 
liim the breadth of a hair. 

When Ada, Lady Lovelace, was dying, and suf- 
fering the tortures of a slow, internal disease, she 
expressed a craving to see Charles Dickens, and 
talk with him. He went to her, and found a mourn- 



CHARLES DICKENS, 239 

ing house. The lady was stretched upon a couch, 
heroically enduring her agony. The appearance of 
Dickens' earnest, sympathetic face was immediate 
relief. She asked hirn whether the attendant' had 
left a basin of ice and a spoon. She had. " Then 
give me some now and then, and don't notice me 
when I crush it between my teeth : it soothes my 
pain, and — we can talk." 

The womanly tenderness, the wholeness with 
which Dickens would enter into the delicacies of 
such a situation, will rise instantly to the mind of 
all who knew him. That he was at the same 
moment the most careful of nurses and the most 
sympathetic and sustaining of comforters, who can 
doubt ? 

" Do you ever pray?" the poor lady asked. 

" Every morning and every evening," was Dickens' 
answer, in that rich, sonorous voice which crov,'ds 
happily can remember ; but of which they can best 
understand all the eloquence, who knew how simple 
and devout he was when he spoke of sacred things, 
— of suffering, of wrong, or of misfortune. " He 
taught the world," said his friend Dean Stanley 
over his new-made grave in Westminster Abbey, 
" great lessons of the eternal value of generosity, of 
purity, of kindness, and of unselfishness ; and by 
his fruits shall he be known of all men." His en- 
gaging manner when he came suddenly in contact 
with a sick friend, defies description ; but from his 



240 CHARLES DICKENS. 

own narrative of his walk with my father, which he 
told me made his heart heavy and was a gloomy 
task, it is easy for friends to understand the pa- 
tience, solicitude, kindly counsel, and designed 
humor with which he went through with it. My 
father was very ill ; but under Dickens' thoughtful 
care he had rallied before they had reached the 
Temple. "We strolled through the Temple," Dick- 
ens wrote me, " on our way to a boat, and I have a 
lively recollection of him stamping about Elm Tree 
Court, with his hat in one hand, and the other push- 
ing his hair back, laughing in his heartiest manner 
at a ridiculous remembrance we had in common, 
which I had presented in some exaggerated light to 
divert him." Then again, of the same day : " The 
dinner-party was a large one, and I did not sit near 
him at table. But he and I arranged, before we 
went in to dinner, that he was only to eat some 
simple dish that we agreed upon, and was only to 
drink sherry-and-water." Then, "We exchanged, 
*God bless you ! ' and shook hands." 

And — they never met again. 

But how full of wise consideration is all this day 
spent with the invalid friend, in the midst of merri- 
ment, even to the ridiculous remembrance "pre- 
sented in some exaggerated light, to divert him ! " 
Mr. Charles Kent has told me how he met Dickens 
a few weeks before his death, and was observed, at 
i glance, by that m.ost masterly and piercing ob- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 24 1 

server, to be in low spirits and feeble. Whereupon 
Dickens, who had ample momentous business of 
his own on hand, put it aside, sketched a pleasant 
day together : a tete-a-iete dinner and a walk. In 
short, to watch the many sides of his unselfishness, 
and the fund of resources for the good of other peo- 
ple he had at his command, was to be astonished at 
liis extraordinary vitality. How good he was to all 
who had the slightest claim on him, who shall tell ? 
But that which Hepworth Dixon said over my 
father's dust may be assuredly repeated by the 
narrow bed near Macaulay, Sheridan, and Handel. 
If every one who has received a favor at the hands 
of Dickens should cast a flower upon his grave, a 
mountain of roses would lie upon the great man's 
breast. And, in truth, his grave was filled with 
flowers. 

There was that boy-element in Charles Dickens 
which has been so often remarked in men of genius 
as to appear almost inseparable from the highest 
gifts of nature. " Why, we played a game of knock 
'em down only a week or two ago," a friend remarked 
to me last June, with brimmmg eyes. "And he 
showed all the old, astonishing energy and delight 
in taking aim at Aunt Sally." 

My own earliest recollections of Charles Dickens 
are of his gayest moods : when the boy in him was 
exuberant, and leap-frog or rounders were not sports 
too young for the player who had written " Pick- 



242 CHARLES DICKENS. 

wick" twenty years before. To watch him through 
an afternoon, by turns light and grave ; gracious 
and loving and familiar to the young, apt and vig- 
orous in council with the old ; ready for a frolic 
upon the lawn — leap-frog, rounders ; as ready for a 
committee-meeting in the library; and then to catch 
his cheery good-night, and feel the hand that spoke 
so truly from the heart,— was to see Charles Dick- 
ens the man, the friend, the companion, and the 
counsellor, all at once, and to get at something like 
a just estimate of that which was beautiful in the 
brilliant and noble Englishman we have lost. 

The follovi^ing interesting chapter of gossip, 
contributed originally to the EiiglisJiwoman s 
Magazine, gives us perhaps the most vivid 
and striking portraiture of Dickens the man, 
that is to be found in any sketch of similar 
length. 

A v/oman's gossip. 

Even the trivialities connected with a great man 
are interesting, and the mildest anecdotes of a hero's 
private life are full of flavor to those who know him 
only on the pedestal of his public career. It is not 
my intention to enter into any of the vexed ques- 
tions regarding his domestic unhappiness, but to 
merely give a true detail of my impressions of him 
during the period of the {^\n months in which I was 
in daily intercourse with Charles Dickens and his 



CHARLES DICKENS. 243 

family. These reminiscences of him, though dis- 
interred from the memories of nearly twenty-nine 
years ago, may still afford amusement to others, as 
they do to me in recalling them. So vivid is ray 
first impression of our great author that I can see 
him now " in n~ mind's eye " as clearly depicted 
as if days, and not years, had intervened since I 
was presented to him at the house of a relative of 
mine. I was first introduced to his wife in the 
sanctuary of the bedroom, where I was arranging 
my hair before the glass. I thought her a pretty 
little woman, with the heavy-lidded large blue eyes 
so much admired by men. The nose was a little 
retrousse, the forehead good, mouth small, round, 
and red-lipped, with a pleasant smiling expression, 
notwithstanding the sleepy look of the slow-moving 
eyes. The weakest part of the face was the chin, 
which melted too suddenly into the throat. She 
took kindly notice of me, and I went down with a 
fluttering heart to be introduced to " Boz." 

The first ideas that flashed through me were, 
"What a fine characteristic face ! What marvellous 
eyes ! And what horrid taste in dress ! " 

He wore his hair long, in ''admired disorder," 
and it suited the picturesque style of his head ; but 
he had on a surtout with a very wide collar, very 
much thrown back, showing a vast expanse of 
waistcoat, drab trousers, and drab boots with 
patent leather toes, and the whole effect (apart from 



244 CHARLES DICKENS. 

his fine head) gave evidence of a loud taste in cos- 
tume, and was not proper for evening dress. 

Of course, I listened eagerly during dinner to 
catch the pearls and other precious things that fell 
from his lips, and watched, in reverent admiration, 
every flash of his clear gray eyes, for I was enthusi- 
astic, and in my teens. He did not speak much, 
and his utterance was lov/-toned and rapid, with a 
certain thickness, as if the tongue were too large for 
the mouth. I found afterward that this was a 
family characteristic ; and he had a habit of suck- 
ing his tongue when thinking, and at the same time 
running his fingers through his hair till it stood out 
in most leonine fashion. When writing, if his 
ideas got entangled, he would work away with his 
left hand, dragging viciously at certain locks until 
the subject became satisfactorily ** evolved out of 
his inner consciousness," 

Before uttering an amusing speech I noticed a 
most humorous scintillation gleaming in his eyes, 
accompanied by a comic elevation of one eyebrow ; 
but he did not strike me as possessing the sarcastic, 
searching expression that I expected. I discovered 
afterward, that without appearing to notice what 
was going on around, nothing escaped him ; and at 
the times when his eyes had a far-off look, wide- 
opened and almost stony in their fixity, he was in 
reality making mental notes of his surroundings. 

How many times have I been betrayed into com- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 24^ 

mitting myself in thoughtless discourse, duped by 
his abstracted air ! How often have I indulged in 
sundry foolish acts, and given utterance to much 
silly persiflage and ill-digested reasoning among 
our circle, in the full confidence of his being in the 
seventh heaven of rapt reverie, to find him suddenly 
rising up, shaking his mane like a lion from his 
slumbers, and, with a face radiant with mischief 
and fun, recapitulating all ray girlish " slip-slop," 
twisting and turning it into the most unexpectedly 
distorted shapes, and tacking on to it a running 
commentary of witty criticisms ! 

He never thought himself too great a genius to 
enter into our games, but he somehow ahvays con 
trived to transfuse such a tone of cleverness and 
depth into them that they became *^ keen encounters 
of our wits," and we were all put on our mettle to 
play up to the subtile spirit with which the master- 
mind impregnated the most sterile matter. How 
proud I used to feel whenever I had said a better 
thing than usual to get an approving smile or word 
from our maestro I The first time he thus noticed 
me is marked with a white stone in my memory. 
A number of us were playing the simple game of 
" How, when, and where do you like it ? " The 
word given was "scull," and the object is to puzzle 
the querist by the several meanings given to the 
word. Frederick Dickens was the questioner, and 
I gave, in reply to "How 1 liked it?" "With the 



240 CHARLES DICKENS. 

accompaniment of a fine organ." 2d. "When?" 
"When youth is at the helm and pleasure at the 
prow." 3d. "Where ? " " Where wanders the hoary 
Thames along his silver winding way." 

Dickens rose and came over to me, saying, laugh- 
ingly, " Of course, little goose, your answers be- 
trayed the word to the most simple comprehension, 
but they v/ere good answers and apt quotations 
nevertheless, and I think it would add to the inter- 
est of the game if we all sharpened our wits, and 
tried to give a poetical tone to it by good quota- 
tions as answers." After this time we had to read 
up to keep pace with the fund of quaint sayings he 
introduced into this pastime. 

Another game was nothing but a series of leading 
questions, which we called " Animal, mineral, or 
vegetable." The first time we played it, Mr. Dick- 
ens was obliged to give up, after exhausting himself 
in questioning. He had arrived at the facts that 
the article in question was vegetable, mentioned in 
mythological history, and belonging to a queen, and 
that the destiny was pathetic. After a display of his 
classic lore in attaining this much he gave it up, and 
was good-naturedly indignant at finding the subject 
over which he had wasted so much time and erudi- 
tion was one of the tarts mentioned in the rhymes^- 

'* The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts, 
Upon a summer's day ; 
The Knave of Hearts he stole the tart:;. 
And took them quite away." 



CHARLES DICKENS, 247 

We promised in future to abstain from such un- 
worthy subjects ; but on another occasion he pulled 
my hair in pretended wrath, because I puzzled him 
with " The wax with which Ulysses stuffed the ears 
of his crew to prevent them hearing the songs of 
the sirens." 

Sometimes we played vingt-et-un, and he was as 
playfully eager, as full of noisy glee, as the veriest 

school-boy. One evening his friend jMr. jNI 

made his appearance in a preposterously long stock 
which he evidently thought was perfectly chic. 
Dickens eyed it for some time with a perplexed and 
thoughtful demeanor. 

'* Halloo, Charley ! " sSid Mr. M., " what are you 
staring at my stock for ? " 

Dickens threw into his countenance an exagger- 
ated expression of relief from a harassing doubt, 
and cried 

" Stock ? Oh, I 'ra glad to know it is meant for a 
stock ; it was so painful to think you might have 
intended it for a waistcoat." 

A great deal of amusement was excited by Mrs. 
Charles Dickens perpetrating tlie most absurd puns, 
which she did with a charming expression of inno- 
cence and deprecation of her husband's wrath ; 
while he tore his hair and writhed as if convulsed 
with agony. He used to pretend to be utterly dis- 
gusted, although he could neither resist lauglitcr at 
the puns nor at the pretty comic vioue she made 



24S CHARLES DICKENS. 

(with eyes turned up till little of the whites was visi- 
ble) after launching forth one of these absurdities. 
Every autumn it was Mr. Dickens' custom to 
take his family to Broadstairs, and shortly after I 
became acquainted with him the usual flitting took 

place. He begged my friends Mr. and Mrs. S 

to take a house there also. This they agreed to, and 
I accompanied them as a visitor, to my intense de- 
light, for I hoped to be privileged to daily enjoy- 
ment of the presence of this man of genius. And 
now began a time which I look back to as almost 
the brightest in my life, as far as enjoyment went. 
Every day was spent by our family and the Dick- 
enses together, either doing the usual seaside recre- 
ations, or at each other's houses. In the familiarity 
which such friendly association engenders we got 
up ridiculous relations to each other. He pretend- 
ed to be engaged in a semi-sentimental, semi-jocu- 
lar, and wholly nonsensical flirtation with me as 

well as with Milly T , one of my friends, a 

charming woman of a certain age, and we on our 
side acted mutual jealousy toward each other, and 
Mrs. Charles Dickens entered into the fun with 
great gusto and good-humor. My friend Milly he 
called his " charmer," " the beloved of his soul," and 
I was his " fair enslaver " and his " queen." We 
generally addressed each other in the old English 
style of euphuism, and he would ask us to dance in 
such bombastic nonsense as : 



CHARLES DICKENS. 249 

" Wilt tread a measure with me, sweet lady ? 
Fain would I thread the mazes of this saraband 
with thee." 

" Ay, fair sir, that I will right gladly ; in good 
sooth I '11 never say thee nay." 

I need not say that the stately and courtly gravity 
with which we "trod our measure " was truly edify- 
ing, and the spectators were convulsed at the won- 
derful *'Turveydrop " deportment of Mr.* Dickens, 
and the Malvolio-like conceit he contrived to call 
into his countenance. 

" I think I could act a pompous ass to perfec- 
tion ! " he exclaimed after one of these dances. 
'' Let us get up some charades, and test our histri- 
onic powers." 

After some discussion, we fixed on the word 
" Pompadour," and he took the part of Louis XIV. 
Milly was a Comtesse de Soubise, and I as Madame 
Pompadour was supposed to be jealous of her with 
good cause. The first syllable represented the stiff 
etiquette and tiresome observances of the court of 
the Grand Monarque, and was acted entirely in 
pantomimic action. The second syllable (convert- 
ed into adore) was a love-scene, in which Louis did 
a deal of inflated bombast in the ancient French 
style of love-making to the rival comtesse. The 
whole was completed by the wily mistress obtaining 
by stratagem a lettre-de-cachet from the king and 
consigning the rival to the Bastile, while the triumph 



250 CHARLES DICKENS. 



^1 



of Pompadour was complete. This was all acted 
on the spur of the moment, without any costume 
but such drapery and finery as could be obtained 
readily and twisted into use. Mr. Dickens was very 
grandiose, although he figured in a lady's broad- 
brimmed hat pinned up on one side, and a rather 
draggled feather stuck nearly on end, which ^you]d 
keep turning round the wrong way. 

About this time there was a rumor flying about 
that Dickens had gone insane, at v/hich he Avns 
much annoyed. We were all v/alking on the beacli 

one day, accompanied by a gentleman, a Mr. F , 

a sculptor, who had only come down on a visit to 
Mr. Dickens the day before. This gentleman was, 
to use the mildest term, very eccentric, and did the 
most unaccountable things in moments of impulse. 
He was several yards in front of us, and was ])e- 
having in a very flighty manner. Some strangers 
passed him, and as they neared us stood to look 
after him. " Ah," said one, with a lugubrious look 
and a Lord-Burleigh shake of the head, " you see 
it 's quite true ! Poor Boz ! V/hat a pity to see 
such a wreck ! " Dickens scowled at them., and 

then called out, "Halloo, F , I wish you 'd'mod- 

erate your insane gambolings ! There are fools 
among the British public who might mistake you 
for me." 

These representatives of the British public slunk 
away, followed by the glowing anger of Dickens' 



CHARLES DICKENS. 25 I 

eyes, which seemed to shrivel them into nothing- 
ness. Dickens walked on with inflated nostrils and 
compressed lips for a few moments, and then burst 
out laughing. "I am afraid I was rather down on 
those poor beggars," said he, "but I don't like that 
ambling ass to be taken for me." 

Next day he was sitting with us, when Mr. M 

ran in with consternation in every feature, calling 
cut, " Charley ! for God's sake come and put a stop 

to this ! There 's F has walked out of the sea, 

without a rag on him, right among the people on 
the beach. You never saw such a scatter in your 
life ! " 

Dickens jammed his hat on his head vv'ith a mut- 
tered " D d fool ! " and tore down stairs with 

M ; he came back in about half an hour, and 

Mr. S asked him jokingly how he had disposed 

of the naked truth. 

''I never dreamt in childhood's hour," said 
Dickens, commencing poetically and then sinking 
suddenly into prose, '' that I should ever turn my- 
self into a perambulating screen ; but the magnani- 
mous way in which I have sacrificed my self- 
esteem in bobbing and sidling about with my coat- 
tails spread out to shield this rampant Achilles from 
the chaste eyes of the fair sect and the innocent 
babbies, deserves the thanks of the nation ! I told 
him that was not the place iox '' poses plastiqties* ; 
but he was so enthusiastically intent on doing the 



252 CHARLES DICKENS. 



antique that I could only frantically, and I may 
say heroicall}^, interpose my devoted body between 
him and the spectators." This was all nonsense, 

as he told us afterward that he found F had 

returned into the water as fast as he got out, and 
he had no occasion to be a screen. 

Why is it that by the sea one loses an immense 
deal of decency? Is it that the contemplation of the 
" vasty deep " enlarges and expands the ideas so much 
that they roam out into space and become lost in its 
immensity ? Nobody seemed profoundly shocked 
at this affair, which was treated quite jocularly. 

A few days after this Milly accompanied me to 
bathe, though she did not enter the water herself. 
After I had got out and was dressing, we heard a 
splash from the next machine, succeeded by splut- 
tering and panting, interspersed v/ith expletives and 

one or two "' D ns " at the coldness of the water. 

We emerged from our car, and, on crossing the 
plank which united a long row of machines, the 
first object that met our eyes was Dickens disport- 
ing in the waves within six yards of us, but with 
only his head and shoulders visible. 

" What ! my charmers ? " he called out, with 
chattering teeth. " Behold a man who has taken a 
fatal plunge in the briny, and wishes himself \vt\\ 
out of it. A crab is attempting to seize my great 
toe, so I 'm off. Ta-ta till we meet again at Phi- 
lippi." And off he went swimmingly. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 253 

Like all poetical natures, he delighted in gazing at 
the sea. He would remain for hours as if entranced, 
with a rapt, immovable, sphinx-like calm on his face, 
and that far-off look in his magnificent eyes, totally 
forgetful of every thing, and abstracted from us all. 
We always respected his isolation, and careful] y 
kept aloof. 

I drew a sketch of him during one of these medi- 
tative moods, and showed it to a Aliss F who was 

staying with them. This young lady had testified 
a good deal of petty jealousy at the notice which 
Dickens took of me, and I have no doubt wished to 
make a little mischief between us, as she told him 
privately that evening that I had been caricaturing 
him. I was surprised to find him looking stony and 
stand-off when I met him again, and, greatly hurt, 
I went to Mrs. Charles Dickens (who was always 
kind and good-natured), and asked her what I had 
done to offend him. 

" Well," she answered gently, " Charles is annoyed 
at your having drawn a caricature of him. Miss 

F told him she had seen a horrid caricature you 

had made of him." 

I hastily took the sketch from between the leaves 
of the book I was carrying, and handed it to her 
without a word. 

" Why, this is very like him," she cried, in pleased 
surprise. " This is not a caricature, but a very nice 
sketch. Will you give it to me ? I should like 



254 CHARLES DICKENS. 



Charles to see it, and he will soon be convinced 

that Miss F was mistaken. Thank you, dear," 

and she kissed me kindly. "Don't let the tears 
come into your eyes about such nonsense ; it will 
be all right, I promise you." 

She v/ent off with it ; and the same evening I saw 
him again, with no cloud on his brow and as pleas- 
ant as ever. 

" Mr. Dickens," I said, with tears in my voice (as 
the French say), "how could you think I would 
presume to caricature you ? That odious girl put 
that into your head because she can't bear you to 
be amiable to any one but herself. Horrid, red- 
haired thing ! I can't think why you like her ! " 

" My enslaver," he replied, with the odd twinkle 
of the eye, " I always loved gingerbread, even after 
childhood's hours had vanished into the dim past, 
and her tresses awaken fond memories of my lolli- 
pop days ; but I don't like her ginger as I do your 
gold," and he pulled my long yellow curls playfully 
as he passed on. 

The next night we w^ere all assembled on the 
little pier or jetty which ran out into the sea, with 
an upright spar fixed at the extreme end. At the 
beginning was a railed-off space v/ith seats, which 
he called the family pew. Mr. Dickens was in high 
spirits, and enjoyed the darkness of the evening, be- 
cause he escaped the curious eyes of thfe Broadstairs 
population. We had a quadrille all to ourselves, 



CHARLES DICKENS. 255 

the music being Frederick Dickens' whistling, and 
Mr. Dickens* accompaniment on his pocket-comb. 
We then strolled farther down to watch by the fading 
light the tide come rippling in. The night grew 
darker, starless and moonless ; the only light being 
a lingering lurid gleam, which touched the crests of 
the waves with a phosphorescent glimmer. Dickens 
seemed suddenly to be possessed with the demon 
of mischief ; he threw his arm around me and ran 
me down the inclined plane to the end of the jetty 
till we reached the tall post. He put his other arm 
around this, and exclaimed in theatrical tones that he 
intended to hold me there till " the sad sea-waves " 
should submerge us. 

" Think of the sensation we shall create ! Think 
of the road to celebrity which you are about to 
tread ! No, not exactly to tread, but to flounder 
into ! " 

Here I implored him to let me go, and struggled 
hard to release myself. 

" Let your mind dwell on the column in the 
Tiines^ wherein will be vividly described the pathetic 
fate of the lovely E. P., drowned by Dickens in a 
fit of dementia ! Don't struggle, poor little bird ; 
you are powerless in the claws of such a kite as this 
child ! " 

By this time the gleam of light had faded out, and 
the water close to us looked uncomfortably black. 

The tide was coming up rapidly and surged over 



2 5^ CHARLES DICKENS. 



my feet. I gave a loud shriek, and tried to bring 
him back to common sense by reminding him that 
" My dress, my best dress, my only silk dress, would 
be ruined." Even this climax did not soften him ; 
he still went on with his serio-comic nonsense, shak- 
ing with laughter all the time, and panting with his 
struggles to hold me. 

" Mrs. Dickens ! " a frantic shriek this time, for 
now the waves rushed up to ray knees ; " help me ! 
make Mr. Dickens let me go — the waves are up to 
my knees ! " 

" Charles ! " cried Mrs. Dickens, echoing my 
wild scream, " how can you be so silly ? You will 
both be carried off by the tide " (tragicall}^, but im- 
mediately sinking from pathos to bathos), " and 
you '11 spoil the poor girl's silk dress ! " 

'' Dress ! " cried Dickens, v/ith withering scorn. 
'' Talk not to me of dress I When the pall of night 
is enshrouding us in Cimmerian darkness, when we 
already stand on the brink of the great mystery, 
shall our thoughts be of fleshly vanities ? Am I 
not immolating a brand-new pair of patent leathers 
still unpaid for ? Perish such low-born thoughts ! 
In this hour of abandonment to the voice of destiny 
shall we be held back by the puerilities of silken 
raiment? Shall leather or prunella (whatever 
that may be) stop the bolt of Fate ? " with a sud- 
den parenthetical sinking from bombast to familiar 
accents, and back again. 



CHARLES DICKENS, 257 

At this point I succeeded in wresting myself free, 
and scampered to my friends, almost crying with 
vexation, my 07ily silk dress clinging clammily 
round me, and streaming with salt water. My 

chaperone, ]\'Irs. S , received me with unjust 

severity, evidently thinking I could have got away 
if I had chosen. 

" Run home at once," she said majestically, " and 
take off your wet things. I am surprised at you ! " 

During this wrestling match between us, I cannot 
describe the ridiculous effect produced by his 
"mouthing" in the Ercles vein, with now and 
then a quick descent into comicality, — the contrast 
between the stiltified language and the gasping 
struggles caused by my efforts to get free, his sup- 
pressed chuckles at my dismay, my wild appeals, 
and the expostulations of his wife and the rest, who 
stood by, like the chorus in a Greek play, powerless 
to help. 

I went off, escorted by Frederick Dickens, after 
hearing Mrs. Charles say — 

" It was too bad of you, Charles ; remember 
poor E. cannot afford to have her dress destroyed. 
Of course you '11 give her another ? " 

" Never ! " was the reply. " I have sacrificed her 
finery and my boots to the infernal gods. Kismet ! 
It is finished ! Eureka ! etc., etc. ; and now I go to 
tug myself black in the face getting off my pedal 
covers." 



25S CHARLES DICKENS. 



1 



Dickens was rather reckless in his fun sometimes, 
and my wardrobe suffered wofully in consequence. 
There was a sort of promontory stretching out into 
the sea, where, in rough weather, the waves used to 
rush up several feet, and come splashing down like 
a shower-bath. On two occasions, when I had 
thoughtlessly ventured near this spot, he seized me 
and ran me, nolens volens, right under the cataract, 
to the irretrievable ruin of two bonnets of frail 
fabric, and my slender purse was taxed to the ut- 
most to replace them. 

It was arranged that we should make an excur- 
sion to Pegwell Bay, and lunch at the small hotel 
on prawns and bottled porter ; and on a lovely 
morning two open carriages stood at our door ready 
to receive us. Mrs. Dickens and two of her lady 
visitors had walked to our house, and we were only 
waiting for Mr. Dickens and some gentlemen 
friends. Presently he came in in high glee, flourish- 
ing a yard of ballads, which he had just bought from 
a beggar in the street. 

" Look here ! fair dames and damosels," he cried 
exultingly. " All for one penny ! invested by yours 
truly for the delectation of the company. One 
song alone is worth a Jew's eye,— quite new and 
original,— the subject being the interesting an- 
nouncement about our Gracious Queen. It is in 
the vulgar tongue, but you are all so familiar with 
' Nix my Dolly,' and other songs of that kind, that 
I dare say you will not be shocked." 



CHARLES DICKENS. 259 

He commenced to give us a specimen, but after 
hearing one verse there arose a cry of universal ex- 
ecration. The song was founded on the official 
notice that a prince or princess might shortly be ex- 
])ected, and was sung to the tune of " The King of 
the Cannibal Islands." He pretended to be vexed 
at us " shutting him up," said there " v/as nothing 
wrong in it ; he had written a great deal worse him- 
self "; and when we were going to enter the carriage 
he said : 

" Now, look here, I give due notice to all and 
sundry, that I mean to sing that song and a good 
many of the others during the ride, so those ladies 
who think them vulgar can go in the other carnage. 
I am not going to invest my hard-earned penny for 
nothing." 

I was quite certain that Charles Dickens was the 
last man in the world to shock the modesty of any 
female, and too much of a gentleman to do any- 
thing that was annoying to us, but I thought it was 
as well to go in the other carriage, and so he had 

no ladies with him but his wife and Mrs. S . I 

was not sorry on the whole to be where I was, as I 
heard for the next half-hour small portions of those 
songs wafted on the breeze to us whenever our 
vehicle approached near them, and the bursts of 
laughter from ladies and gentlemen, and the mis- 
chievous twinkle in Dickens' eye, proved that he was 
in such a madcap mood that it was as well there were 



26o CHARLES DICKENS. 

none but married people with him, the subject being 
what it was, of a " Gampish " nature. 

He was not always full of spirits or even-tem- 
pered ; indeed, I was somewhat puzzled by the 
variability of his moods. After indulging in tlie 
greatest fun and familiarity over-night, v/e would 
sometimes meet him walking alone, when he would 
look at us with lack-lustre eye, and pass on with a 
hurried "How d' ye do ? " 

One day he strolled by our window where Milly 
and I were standing on the balcony. He turned 
back, " struck " an attitude (in actors' jjhrase); with 
one hand on his heart, and the other upraised, he 
began mouthing : 

" ' 'T is my lady, 't is my love. Oh, would I v/ere a . 
glove upon that hand, that I might kiss that cheek.' " 
"Which of us do you intend to be the Juliet to 
your Romeo ?" asked Milly. 

"Whichever you choose, my little dears," he said 
nonchalantly, and, touching his hat, sauntered on. 

The next morning he came by again, and found 
us as before, but he only returned a sulky "How 
do ?" and walked by. Of course we knew that he 
was in the midst of some brain-spinning, and wanted 
to be alone. I got to understand his face so well 
that when I saw the preoccupied look I used to pre- 
tend not to see him at all, so as to spare him even 
the trouble of recognizing me, and I found he was 
all the better pleased. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 26 1 

One night we all went to the Tivoli Gardens, a 
place in the style of Vauxhall on a small scale. 
There was a covered portion set apart for dancing, 
and we saw some very respectable people footing it 
with great enjoyment. We had a consultation 
whether it would be very infra dig. if the young 
ones of our party had a private quadrille among 
themselves, and, as no one knew us, we decided to 
enjoy ourselves too. Mr. Dickens, meanwhile, 
walked about, not venturing into the glare of the 
lights, as his face was too well known for him to 
preserve his incognito. There was a girl dancing 
near us, who had long plaited tails of hair down her 
back, sandaled shoes, and frilled drawers, to whom, 
by universal acclamation, we affixed the name of 
Morleena Kenwigs, Dickens was amused at the 
resemblance, and was making a laughing remark on 
her, when a man came close to him and stared 
knowingly and rather offensively in his face. Dick- 
ens moved away, but this bore followed him, 
glowering with all his eyes, and with ears on full 
cock to catch every stray word. At last Dickens 
lost patience, and turning suddenly, confronted him, 
witli : 

" Pray, sir, are you a native of this place ? '' 

"N — no, sir," stammered the individual. 

" Oh, I beg your pardon ! " returned Dickens 
with elaborate politeness. " I fancied I could de- 
tect broad-stares on your very face." 



262 CHARLES DICKENS. 



I need not say that the unhappy wight vanished 
into the shades of evening. 

One morning at his own house Dickens was talk- 
ing on art to a gentleman present, and they dis- 
cussed the statue of Venus, which Byron raves 
about in his "Pilgrimage." Dickens objected to 
the expressions used by Byron, " Dazzled and drunk 
with beautj^," " The heart reels with its fulness," 
etc., as being an unpoetical metaphor, and said it 
must have been written tipsil}^, under the influence 
of that beverage (gin-and-water) which sometimes 
inspired this great poet. I defended the verse, and 
Dickens rose up, pushed his hands through his flow- 
ing locks so as to give them their most weird look, 
turned down his shirt-collar, slapped his brow, and 
exclaimed, in the Bombastes Furioso style — 

" Stand back ! I am suddenly seized with the 
divine afflatus. Don't disturb me till I have given 
birth to my grand conceptions." 

He took out his pencil, and, finding there was no 
paper in the room, he stalked with grotesquely 
melodramatic air to the window, and wrote on the 
white shutter. Frederick Dickens copied the writ- 
ing afterward for me, and it was as follows : — 

LINES, AFTER BYRON, TO E. P . 



" O maiden of the amber-dropping hair, 
May I, Byronically, thy praises utter ? 
Drunk with thy beauty, tell me, may I dare 
To sing thy p^ans borne 7(pon a shutter?" 



CHARLES DICKENS. 263 

My father was a Scottish author of considerable 
reputation, and had died suddenly at the age of 
forty-two, of apoplexy, when I was only twelve 
years old. I lent Mrs. Dickens some volumes of his 
writings about this time, and she expressed to me 
how delighted she was in their perusal. In my 
presence she asked Mr. Dickens to read them. He 
looked his distaste at the idea, and when she pressed 
him "just to read one tale, such a beautifully writ- 
ten one, and very short," he turned and walked off 
abruptly, muttering — " I hate Scotch stories, and 
every thing else Scotch." I thought this was very 
unkind to his wife as well as to me, as she was 
Scotch too. She colored up, but laughed it off. 

There were times when we gave Mr. Dickens " a 
wide berth," and Milly and I have often run round 
corners to get out of his way, when we thought he 
was in one of these moods, which we could tell by 
one glance at his face. His eyes were always like 
"danger lamps," and warned people to clear the 
line for fear of collision. We felt we had to do 
with a genius, and in the throes and agonies of 
bringing forth his conceptions, we did not expect 
him to submit to be interrupted by triflers like our- 
selves : at these times I confess I was horribly 
afraid of him. I told him so, to his great amuse- 
ment. 

"Why, there 's nothing formidable about me ! " 

" Is n't there ? " I answered. " You look like a 



264 CHARLES DICKENS. 

forest lion with a shaggy mane at these seasons ; 
and I always think of the words — 

* He roared so loud, and looked so wondrous grim, 
His very shadow dared not follow him.' " 

He laughed aloud, and said, " AVhat ! do yon 
play shadow to my lion ? Nay, then, as Bottom the 
weaver says, ' I must aggravate my voice, I will roar 
you as gently as any sucking dove.' '* After this I 
did not feel quite so frightened of him, though I got 
out of his way all the same. 

On another day Milly and I were on the shore 
in time to see him clambering down some rocks 
with his brother Fred. They came toward us 
laughing, and Dickens, pointing to the knees of his 
trousers, said, " Look at this fresh sacrifice I have 
laid on your altar ! These good pants nearly de- 
stroyed by climbing up that precipitous cliff to 
carve your name in gigantic letters upon a spot 
where the tide never reaches, so that you may go 
down to posterity with your name built upon a 
rock ! " 

" Did you likewise carve ' Charles Dickens/<?^/^' .? '* 
asked I. 

" No, I did not." 

'' Then you might as well have scratched my 
name on the shifting sands, for all the fame I shall 
ever attain." 

They both walked on laughingly, but I never ar- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 265 

rived at the truth whether it was Mr. Dickens or 
his brother Fred who did the carving. Certainly, 
there was my name in letters a foot long on the very 
face of the rock. Fred and I went to look at it a 
year afterward, and found it still existing. 

At last came the sad day when we must leave 
them, to return to our " local habitations " in smoky 
London, and I parted with Mr. and Mrs. Dickens 
with tears of regret. "Never mind, dear," she said 
in her sweet, caressing way, " we shall all meet again 
in London." 

Alas ! we never met again in the same kindly 
way. Every thing was changed. 

When the Dickenses came home we went to 
luncheon there, and I remarked how preoccupied 

he looked, how changed in manner. Mrs. S , 

who knew him better than I did, was quite pre- 
pared to find him different in London from what he 
was in Broadstairs, but I was very disappointed. I 
seldom saw him after this, as he was always full of 
engagements, but Mrs. Dickens I often met at my 
friend's house. I went one evening intending to 

spend it with them, and found Mrs. S and 

Milly dressing to go to a small charade party at the 
Dickens'. Milly immediately proposed to take 

me with them, but Mrs. S said, looking puzzled 

and uncertain, that she feared Mr. Dickens might 
think it a liberty ! " If it was anybody else but 
Charles Dickens I should not hesitate an instant, 



266 CHARLES DICKENS. 

but he is so odd I One never knows how he might 
take such a thing. Although I am his daughter's 
godmother, and we are such friends, I cannot do 
it." 

Mrs. S— — mentioned to Mrs. Dickens how 
greatly it would be to my advantage (being a young 
artist struggling into notice, and helping to support 
my mother and sister) if Mr. Dickens v/ould sit to 
me for his likeness. With that ready good-hearted- 
ness which I always found in her, she immediately 
offered to sit first herself as an inducement to him, 
which she kindly did. She wished it kept secret 
from Mr. Dickens, as she proposed to give it to him 
as a birthday gift, I believe. The portrait was 
nearly completed, and all who saw it thought it an 
excellent likeness ; it was arranged that I should 
bring it myself, in case he might suggest any altera- 
tion. Accordingly I went to Devonshire Terrace 
in a cab with my picture, but found Mr. and Mrs. 
Dickens were out, but were momentarily expected. 
I was shown into the dining-room, and requested by 
the domestic to vv^ait, as Mrs. Dickens expected me. 
The cloth was laid, either for dinner or luncheon. 
I waited for an liour, and at last I heard the car- 
riage draw up to the door. Mrs. Dickens came to 
me with her usual kiss, and " so sorry for keeping 
you waiting." It was raining fast, and her thin 
boots were wet with only walking from the carriage, 
so she took them off there and then, and, fancying I 



CHARLES DICKENS. 267 

was in a state of suspense, she would not wait for 
her slippers, but went straight into the library to 
Mr. Dickens with the portrait in her hand. Not- 
withstanding the closed door, and that I sat far 
from it at the fire, I could hear the tones of tlieir 
voices, Mrs. Dickens' expostulatory, Mr. Dickens' 
imperative. At last she returned, looking flur- 
ried, but trying to put the best face on the mat- 
ter. She made apologies for him, " That he was 
not very well, and tired. She hoped I would ex- 
cuse him not being able to see me." 

I faltered out, " Does he not like the portrait ?" 
" He has not had time to look at it properly. Of 
course he will think it like. You must n't'mind, 
dear, but to tell the truth he is a little grumpy just 
now ; but it will be all right presently. You know a 
man is always cross when he has been kept without 
his dinner. Won't you stay ? " she added, hesitat- 
ingly, and in such a tone that I knew she was afraid 
I might. 

I don't know what I answered. I was thoroughly 
cut up, and wanted to have a " good cry." I broke 
from her even while she was kissing me and telling 
me she would write and let me know how he liked 
it ; she slid into my hand a folded piece of green 
paper, which I knew was a check, and which I jnir- 
posely dropped as I passed into the hall. She came 
after me looking very vexed^ and put it in my reti- 
cule, saying, " For my sake ! " Glad to get out of 



26s CHARLES DICKENS. 

the house, I did not stay to discuss the point, but 
almost ran into the rain. Round the corner I found 
an empty cab, and in it I cried to my heart's con- 
tent all the way home. I never crossed his thresli- 
old again. 

Whether it was really that Mr. Dickens was hun- 
gry and cross ; or whether he was annoyed with 
Mrs. Dickens for having her portrait done without 
his knowledge ; or whether it was because he did 
not like the picture, I never could discover. " He 
was so odd," v/as the only explanation I ever re- 
ceived from the several " mutual " friends to whom 
I mentioned the affair. Old Mrs. Dickens liked the 
picture so much that she begged to have it (I was 
told), and so it ended. It was some salve to my 
amour-propre that I had, in the same spring, a por- 
trait of the Speaker Shaw Lefevre's daughter in the 
Academy, hung "on the line," and favorably no- 
ticed by several of the papers, and that it was con- 
sidered a *' speaking " likeness. 

It is not just or satisfactory to depict only one 
side of any man's character, and Dickens was 
no faultless monster. A portrait is incomplete 
if painted (as Queen Elizabeth, of glorious and 
despotic memory, insisted on being done) without 
its proper proportion of shadows. To describe 
Dickens as always amiable, always just, and always 
in the right, would be simply false and untrue to 
nature. It is right to soften as much as possible all 



CHARLES DICKENS, 269 

the hard edges (as artists do their work with a 
brush called a " sweetener "), and to throw a shade 
over the shortcomings of a truly great man, touch- 
ing his weakness with a tender and delicate hand, 
but speaking of his acts as impartially as possible ; 
more especially when he is gone from us into that 
unknown region where we may be sure all is truth 
or nothing. After great inward discussion, I feel 
that I ought to shake off all moral cowardice, and 
speak of Mr. Dickens as he was to me, ''nothing 
extenuate, nor aught set down in malice " ; it is 
only justice to the living to be truthful to the dead. 
I must entreat my readers to absolve me of any 
wish to obtrude my small identity in the slightest 
degree. It is no egotism which makes the pronoun 
" I " so often repeated in these pages, but the im- 
possibility to detail Dickens' words or acts without 
also telling what led to them. 

The next occasion on which I met Mr. Dickens 
was at a large ball of nearly two hundred persons, 
given by a gentleman connected with me by marriage. 
He came accompanied by Mrs. Dickens, his two 
brothers, Frederick and Alfred, and Mr. Maclise, 
the great painter, since dead. Mr. Dickens looked 
very handsome, and seemed to enjoy himself im- 
mensely ; but he never danced once with me, and 
was only coldly polite, which did not increase my 
enjoyment. He proposed the health of our host at 
supper, in a short speech, but with such rapid ut- 



^ 



270 CHARLES DICKENS, 

terance and in so low a tone that I scarcely caught 
the whole sense of his words. 

The only time I fever felt cross with Mrs. Dickens 
was on this evening. I was engaged to dance with 
Mr. Maclise, and he was coming forward to claim 
me, when she interposed and asked him to dance 
with her. He told her he was engaged to me, but 
she would take no refusal, and they whirled off 
together. Frederick said, " What a shame ! " and 
asked me to try and put up with him instead. Both 
he and his brother Alfred were very attentive to 
me, and I danced with each repeatedly. Fred told 
me he thought Charles was acting " very capri- 
ciously," and seemed sorry for me, as I took it to 
heart; but he was ^'' odd sometimes.'' The evening 
concluded with " Sir Roger de Coverley," danced 
in two long double rows. It was a sight to see 
Maclise at one end and Dickens at the other rush- 
ing forward alternately, both with long locks flying 
free. At one part I had to meet and perform the 
figure with Mr. Dickens, and he unbent a little, 
giving me something of the old smile, and whirling 
me round with something of the old familiar style ; 
but, alas ! it was only like a ghost of the happy 
past, and 1 could have burst out crying. I had 
been so proud of the notice of so great a man, I 
had so sunned myself in his smiles, that it was like 
an untimely frost, come to " nip my buds from 
blowing." 



CHARLES DICKENS. 2/1 

Next year I was married, after a long engage- 
ment, and shortly afterward went to Broadstairs 
with my husband. I had not expected to see the 
Dickenses there, as it was late in the season, and I 
was sure they would have returned. Fred, who 
was a great friend of my husband, soon found us 
out, and we were constantly together ; but I kept 
aloof from his brother, and only spoke to him on 
one occasion during our stay, which was when we 
went, accompanied by Fred, to the Tivoli Gardens, 
and Mr. Dickens and his party were there. If I 
remember rightly, jNliss Hogarth danced with my 
husband and I with Fred, in a few quadrilles made 
up with their set. Mrs. Dickens was as kind as 
ever, and " Boz " danced with her and her sister 
alternately, with as much enjoyment of the fun as 
any of us. 

After this I never saw him but twice again ; once 
at a concert where the lady who afterward became 
Fred's wife performed on the piano. He vvas with 
his wife and Maclise, and favored me witli his 
usual ''How d' ye do ?" eii passant. The last time 
I ever saw liim was a {^\n years ago, when he gave 
a reading of the "Christmas Carol," and he was 
indeed marvelously changed. Lined in face, and 
with grizzled beard, but with even more power 
than ever in expression, the nostril still, like that of 
the war-horse, dilated and sensitive. I was aston- 
ished at the wonderful difference in his voice and 



272 CHARLES DICKENS, 



utterance, which was now sonorous and emphatic. 
His long career of reading and acting had com- 
pletely cured the thickness which I before re- 
marked, and his declamation was no longer hurried. 
A great deal has been said about his hearty will- 
ingness to help young struggling people, and his 
kindly feeling for governesses. All I can say is he 
never helped me, though he had it in his pov/er to 
do so to a great extent. There was an excellent 

lady, a friend of Mrs. S , whom he often met at 

her house, who supported her step-mother by her 
salary as a governess, and whom he knew to be a 
marvel of self-denial, but he never took any notice 
of her more than politeness required, though she 
was enthusiastically enraptured with him, and a lit- 
tle extra kindness would have been the sweetest 
drop in the tasteless cup of her daily avocations. 
In 1846, when I had been married about four years, 
a young lady, only seventeen years of age, of very 
uncommon ability as an artist, implored me to get 
IMr. Dickens to look at some very clever outline il- 
lustrations she had made of his " Chimes " and the 
"Cricket on the Hearth," hoping to excite his in- 
terest in her. I yielded to her solicitations, but, 
knowing how " odd " Mr. Dickens was, I wrote a 
letter to Mrs. Dickens requesting her to use her 
influence with him, and I gave such an account of 
this young lady's praiseworthy endeavors to earn 
a livelihood as would, I think, have interested 



II 



CHARLES DICKENS. 2/3 

most people. I received this reply from Mrs. 
Dickens : — 

My dear Mrs, C, : — Many thanks for your obliging note, 
and interesting account of your young friend. 

Mr. Dickens is so veiy much occupied just now that he has 
not as yet been able to look over the drawings, but I have no 
doubt he will do so very shortly. I trust that yourself and 
baby are quite well, and that you have good accounts from 
your husband. 

I saw our mutual friends, Mrs. S and Miss J , yes- 
terday. 

Excuse this hasty scrawl, and believe me, 

My dear Mrs. C 

Very sincerely yours, 

Catherine Dickens. 

I, Devonshire Terrace, '}>^th April, 1846. 

My poor little artist was dreadfully disappointed 
by merely receiving a polite note, thanking her for 
the sight of her very talented outlines, and that was 
all. I introduced her shortly after this to my good 
friend, J. Sidney Cooper, R.A., the eminent cattle- 
painter, and he invited her to his house to meet 
people of note and influence, and treated her witli 
such true kindness that she never ceased to thank 
mCc To prove that he must have infinitely bene- 
fited her, I have a letter from her sister, written 
long after, in which she says they had had no chance 
of getting on till I "" used my fairy wand and con- 
jured up that bright circle at Mr. Cooper's for her ; 



274 CHARLES DICKENS. 

SO that, you see, treat the matter as you will, it 
comes back \.q you at last ; Minnie owes her highest 
encouragement, and both of us some of our best 
friends, to your active kindness." 

The other members of Mr. Dickens' family whom 
I knew continued always on the same terms, and a 
few years ago Fred came, accompanied by his 
father-in-law, and stayed some days with us. After 

that he came with Mrs. S , and remained with 

us a week, and he would never admit that his broth- 
er felt unkindly toward me, though he could not 
explain his strange conduct. 

The last I ever had to do with Mr, Dickens was 
when I wrote to ask the favor of a few lines from 
him in support of an appeal I was about to make 
to a statesman high in office on behalf of the aged 
and necessitous widow of an author of repute for- 
merly ; but he declined in a few curt sentences, on 
the grounds that I had been "absurdly misinformed " 
as to his having any influence in such quarter. 

The following article is extracted from Lip- 
pi ncott' s Magazine : 

WITH DICKENS — AT THE BANQUET-BOARD AND ON 
SHIPBOARD. 

I had secured my passage in the Scotia^ v/hich 
was to leave Liverpool on November 2d, and was 
spending a week in London prior to the day of sail- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 2/5 

ing. In my quiet lodgings in Sackville Street I liad 
heard no news ; so it was with interest, and some 
vexation, that I saw one morning in the Times the 
announcement that a farewell banquet, to be given 
to Charles Dickens previous to his departure for 
America, was to come off on the evening of No- 
vember 2d. 

For a moment I was completely dispirited at re- 
membering I should be leaving the British Channel 
at that very hour. There were only three days to 
elapse, and I could not reasonably expect the steam- 
ship company to transfer my state-room on so short 
a notice ; and, besides, there was no assurance of a 
ticket to the dinner at this late hour. Yet to miss 
such an occasion without an effort was not to be 
thought of. I hastened into Piccadilly, to the near- 
est cab-stand, and on lifting my finger a hansom 
wheeled from the line and brought up at the curb in 
a twinkling. 

I drove straight to the publishers' who held the 
tickets. In answer to my application a clerk said 
the number had to be limited to five hundred, and 
they had all been taken on the first announcement. 

** I am very desirous of going ; is there no chance 
for me between now and then ? " 

The only encouragement he gave me was to add 
fuel to the flame of my desire by saying, with con- 
siderable fervor : " This is a very remarkable occa- 
sion ; there will probably be assembled at Free- 



2/6 CHARLES DICKENS. 



m\ 



masons' Tavern a greater number of distinguished 
people than were ever under one roof before/' 

" Yes, I know," I interrupted, '' and possibly out 
of that great number there v>^ill be some one who 
can't go ; in which case I beg you to secure the 
place for me.". 

And then I pleaded my nationality in a faint- 
hearted way, with the feeble hope that it might be- 
guile him into making an effort for me. He opened 
a blank-book at this, and showed me that nineteen 
applicants for such chances had been ahead of me. 
" But I'll put you down for the twentieth, if you 
wish," he said, in a tone that left no room for hope. 

I left the shop, determined to remain in London 
and trust to luck, if I could do so without sacri- 
ficing my passage. A telegram was at once sent to 
Liverpool, asking the favor of a transfer to the Cuba, 
which was to sail a week later. Then, having dis- 
missed the cab, I strolled along the Strand as far 
as Wellington Street, when it occurred to me that 
possibly some clerk in the office of All the Yea?' 
Round might be in possession of a ticket and be in- 
different about using it ; but I was told there was 
no chance outside the publishing house. Into the 
Strand again I pushed along, not yet quite dis- 
heartened. There must be some way open for one 
so bent on admission, I thought — some magic words 
to open the door of this Freemasons' cave. " Let 
me see — ' Open wheat,' ' Open rye ! ' Open — open 
guineas / " 



CHARLES DICKENS. 2// 

In two minutes more I was again in a hansom, 
driving smartly for the publishers'. 

"Open wheat, open rye," I murmured to the clerk. 

" No one has yet returned a ticket," he re- 
sponded. 

'' Open guineas ! " I exclaimed. Whereupon, 
after consultation with a brother clerk, he said to 
me : " It 's possible one may turn up by evening ; and 
if it should, I '11 send a note to your lodgings." 

I thanked him, drove away, and — well, I got the 
ticket ! Somebody from the country, I think, who 
could n't come to town on that evening. The fol- 
lowing telegram soon justified my venture, and put 
me in everlasting good-humor with the steamship 
company : " Berth cancelled, and transferred to 
Cuba'' 

Out of the fog and into the crowded cloak-room 
of Freemasons' Hall I stepped before the clock 
struck seven. A letter B on my dinner-card de- 
noted the section to which the holder was assigned ; 
so, when the ushers invited section B, I followed a 
number up to the banquet-hall, where five hundred 
Britons, in dress-coats and white cravats, were tak- 
ing their seats at the long tables. The dinner com- 
mittee, composed of Wilkie Collins, Fechter, and 
other personal friends of Dickens, were so business- 
like in their arrangements that the throng fell into 
their places with the greatest ease and order. While 
awaiting the arrival of the guest, I had leisure to 



278 CHARLES DICKENS'. 

observe the apartment and the people about me. In 
each panel on the walls was inscribed in gold let- 
ters the title of one of Mr. Dickens' most famous 
works. It was pleasant to watch the countenances 
of his countrymen as they read with new ardor these 
titles — to see them lighten with interest or broaden 
into smiles as the immortal names of '" Nicholas," 
" The Christmas Carol," '' David,'' and '' Pickwick " 
met their eyes. 

It is not hard to detect a stranger ; so my table 
companion, assuring himself of my case, politely of- 
fered to point out any lions that might be in sight, 
either couchant or prowling about. Men were 
passing quickly from one table to the other, talk- 
ing in high good-humor. " Do you see that stout 
man who has just left his seat?'' The man de- 
scribed stopped near us, and, leaning over, began 
to tell something with immense glee to a listening 
group seated at table — stout of body and big of 
head,with uncommon spirit and animation. " That 's 
Mark Lemon," my friend said as he turned from 
them shaking with laughter. How well his name 
fits his ofiQce ! I thought, as I saw for the first and 
last time the editor of Fimch, in the not inappro- 
priate function of being the spirit of mirth at a 
banquet. 

At this moment something like an announcement 
was heard at the door ; a stir was in the room, and 
the whole assemblage rose and broke into applause. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 279 

Mr. Dickens entered, accompanied by Lord Lytton, 
and followed by a score of gentlemen. Very seri- 
ous v/as his expression as be walked by the ranks 
of men clapping their hands vehemently. He 
seemed to be striving to keep down the emotion 
caused by this warm reception, and looked neither 
to right nor left as he traversed the long room. 
Bulwer walked close at his elbow, and while the 
applause deepened looked about him as if in a 
picture-gallery, stroked his beard, and threw his 
glances indifferently around, now on the people, 
now up at the inscriptions, as though he would 
say, " I am determined not to appear to accept one 
grain of this applause for myself." 

A minute, and they had passed, the group of em- 
inent men crowding after so quickly that only a 
few could be named for me : *' The lord chief- 
justice, who is sure to speak. -The somewhat spare 
man, carrying his head bent, is Sir Charles I.yell, 
the geologist. That large man, nearly seven feet 
high, is ' Jacob Omnium ' of the Ti/ncs, one of 
Thackeray's friends. And there is Sir Edwin Land- 
seer." Amazing ! I thought, as I looked upon the 
old man who half a century ago painted Dandie 
Dinmont's terriers, Pepper and Mustard. My com- 
panion brought me abruptly out of the past by ex- 
claiming : " Look quickly if you would see the hand- 
somest man in England — the man with no beard, 
just passing ! That 's Millais, the artist." 



28o CHARLES DICKENS. 

I looked, and saw one of the noted trio of Pre- 
Raphaelites. His face is indeed uncommonly hand- 
some, and not of the florid English type. But I 
thought, as they hurried by, that they all looked 
somewhat low-spirited — like men v/ho had been 
waiting longer than usual for dinner. 

Lord Lytton occupied the chair, with Mr. Dickens 
on his right and the lord chief-justice on his left. 
Behind the chair was the royal standard crossed 
with the stars and stripes, above which was a 
wreath encircling the monogram of the guest ; 
while surmounting these, and almost directly over 
the head of the author, were the glittering letters 
that form the magic name of " Pickwick." 

And now the clink of soup-plates peals a wel- 
come alarum, and the Army, the Navy, the Bench, 
and the Bar, princes, potentates, and warriors, fall 
to with great alacrity. Oh, the clatter, the murmur, 
the hum of a great dinner ! What a sight is that of 
five hundred men feeding at table ! How pleasant 
to observe the measureless content that rests upon 
each countenance ! 

" Stick to the claret, for the sherry at these pub- 
lic dinners is always risky," said my neighbor. I 
obeyed him, and with the aid of certain glees and 
madrigals that were sung at intervals, made the 
time pass till the main business was reached. This 
was entered on by ceremoniously getting through 
the usual loyal toasts and offering congratulations 
to the royal family. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 28 1 

There is one wholesome practice which prevails 
in England that must always startle an American 
when he witnesses it for the first time. It is that of 
coughing down a speaker who is becoming prosy. 
Accustomed to our own social timidity, that com- 
pels us patiently to endure the droning of some 
diffusive bore through a long hour, one is astounded 
when a whole audience is taken with a violent 
catarrhal trouble, that makes such a clamor as to 
drown the speaker and force him to capitulate. 
On this occasion, after the British flag had been 
waved long enough, and over barbarous Abyssinia 
in particular, a certain Captain Somebody of the 
Navy kept on carrying it round the world, with a 
running talk on ships and naval reforms generally. 
A shot or two having no effect, he received a 
broadside which sunk him at once, and silence for 
a moment settled over him. The same fate awaited 
Mr. Tom Taylor, the dramatic writer. Having 
been for some years actively interested in the or- 
ganization and drill of volunteer rifle companies, it 
fell to his lot to return thanks for the toast to the 
volunteers. Hearty cheers awarded his earlier re- 
marks, which were pertinent and telling, but in- 
stead of wisely stopping, he diffused his critical 
observations over such a wide surface that he had 
to be admonished by a scathing fire. Heedless of 
this, he went on, all reason having apparently fled, 
iand fatuously strove to withstand the tremendous 



282 CHARLES DICKENS. 

volley which now assailed him. He staggered for 
an instant, and then dropped into his seat. 

Arriving now at the chief toast of the evening, 
the chairman arose and began to address the eager 
company. At first we could hear no more than 
some vocal sounds, but presently could distinguish 
some inflections of voice. Lord Lytton was mani- 
festly speaking, for he was making gestures and 
uttering sounds, and everybody was trying to hear 
his words, but without success. There sat several 
hundred men with their faces aslant, intently and 
respectfully listening to an inarticulate gurgle. His 
voice was not weak, and he used it with some force 
and deliberation, but he seemed to be engaged in 
swallowing his words as fast as they were formed. 
Now and then his arms would move and his slender 
body swing forward and backward with the energy 
of his thought. If a word was caught, the meaning 
of a sentence was conjectured, and applause would 
follow. Then drawing himself erect, as if he 
thought all his eloquent remarks were distinctly 
heard, he would lift high his narrow shoulders, as 
though gathering for a fresh burst. And when it 
came, my attentive ear was obliged to turn away 
baffled. Upon pointedly addressing a gentleman 
who sat near him at table, it was obvious to 
some that he was making a direct appeal to Mat- 
thew Arnold in support of some proposition that 
never had an audible existence. But it required 



CHARLES DICKENS. 283 

the morning journals afterward to tell us that Bul- 
wer addressed him as '' one distinguished for the 
manner in which he has brought together all that 
is most modern in sentiment with all that is most 
scholastic in thought and language." 

We furthermore had it verified that his oration 
was a glowing ])anegyric on Dickens, to whom he 
turned on closing and looked down upon him. 
Aided by this action, we could gather that he pro- 
posed "a prosperous voyage, health, and long life 
to our illustrious guest and countryman, Charles 
Dickens.'' 

Mr. Dickens was on his feet in an instant, and in 
that voice now so well known, with the least touch 
of huskiness in it, confessed that the composure 
which he was used to command before an audience 
was so completely shaken that he could only hope 
they might see in him now " some traces of an elo- 
quence more expressive than the richest words." It 
was not alone owing to the deep stillness and the 
close attention of the audience that every word he 
spoke was so readily heard. His voice was not 
sonorous, nor did he employ what commonly passes 
for elocution, but by a distinct and forcible enun- 
ciation, and putting a slight stress upon a sugges- 
tive word, often at the close of a sentence, he 
would drive it home to the hearer, laden with all the 
meaning he intended, and sometimes perhaps more 
than the printed text would suggest. 



284 CHARLES DICKENS. 

In a bold figure^ while referring to the emotions 
which his reception hy this great assemblage 
aroused, he said : " The wound in my breast, dealt 
to me by the hands of my friends, is deeper than 
the soundless sea and wider than the whole catholic 
church ! " The intense energy and dramatic fervor 
with which this was uttered sent a thrill through 
the entire company. Yet considerable laughter 
immediately followed, showing that the sentiment 
was extravagant enough to be regarded as a bon 
mot. He told them of " the great pressure of 
American invitations, and of the hearty and 
homely expressions of personal affection for him 
which it would be dull insensibility in him not to 
prize." Further, he promised to use his best 
endeavors " to lay down a third cable of inter- 
communication between the Old World and the 
New." 

As this was a company of Englishmen, it was no 
doubt in excellent taste for the speaker to say the 
following words of the nation he was about to visit : 
" I know full well that whatever little motes my 
beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they are a 
kind, large-hearted, generous, and great people." 
But somehow I was a little uncomfortable under 
this, and, though quite unwarrantably, felt as if I 
were a representative, a sort of accidental ambassa- 
dor, with imputed national sensibilities. The very 
folds of our flag that hung there seemed to become 



CHARLES DICKENS, 28 5 

sentient, and indeed capable of hearing what was 
said. But this little conceit speedily gave place to a 
pang of regret as the address was now about to end. 
With the quotation from that wise little atomy, Tiny 
Tim, of " God bless us every one I " Mr, Dickens 
resumed his seat. 

There was a moment of stillness before any ap- 
plause, and the company maintained their listening 
attitude, reluctant to part with him. Mr. TroUope, 
soon following, sensibly limited himself to fev/ 
words, and those were in denunciation of a certain 
prophet of our day, whose bitter lamentations were 
unnecessary and disagreeable. \lx. Trollope was 
sufficiently lucid for everybody to know that he 
meant Thomas Carlyle. It was in this eccentric 
mode he returned thanks for the toast to Literature. 
The closing address by the lord chief-justice, 
looked to with interest, was a fulsome panegyric on 
the chairman. Lord Lytton was lolling his fatigued 
frame in an arm-chair, with Ins head on one side 
as if asleep. The orator talked to him and at 
him. Standing close at his side, he seemed, even 
by the gestures of his hands, to be baling out eulogy 
and deluging Bulwer with it. But the statesman- 
novelist never once moved his tired head. If, as is 
said, Bulwer is so deaf that he could not hear a 
word of it, the situation becomes ludicrous. The 
banquet was over, and the scene shifted to London 
streets. 



286 CHARLES DICKENS. 

Early on the following Saturday morning I went 
on board a little ferry-boat at the Liverpool wharf, 
and deposited my hat-box at the foot of a huge, 
pyramidal pile of luggage that stood on the centre 
of the deck. The things had been hastily heaped 
together, and the pile was crowned by another hat- 
box, which was rendered unsteady by the motion 
of the boat. Presently it toppled, and after making 
one or two ill-considered movements, rolled steadily 
to the bottom, where it was arrested by my own 
hat-box, against which it leaned trustingly. On its 
lid was painted in large black letters the name 
" Charles Dickens." This little incident informed 
us of the precious freight the Cuba was to carry, 
and was read as a happy augury of a pleasant ocean 
voyage. 

''That's him now, a-coming down the plank," 
said a rough-looking man to a knot of others. Ap- 
proaching the tug at a fast walk was a man of me- 
dium height, with weather-beaten, ruddy face and 
light blue eyes. He was dressed in a heavy, double- 
breasted pea-jacket, and wore a Derby hat. It is 
the first mate hastening aboard, I should have said 
had I not seen him before. This apparently sea- 
faring man was the only passenger to whom anxious 
farewells were said ; and as a rosy young girl clung 
tearfully about his neck in daughterly fashion, the 
rigging became suddenly interesting to me, and my 
note-book was closed. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 2%^ 

When fairly on our way it was apparent that Mr. 
Dickens* known pedestrian habits were invincible 
by wind or wave. To and fro, between the wheel- 
house and the smoke-stack, he paced the deck for 
hours every day. These walks were mostly alone, 
for the reserve with which he obviously sheltered 
himself was respected from beginning to end. Ic 
was only in those accidental encounters or inevitable 
juxtapositions arising on shipboard that he was ad- 
dressed by his fellow-passengers But he rarely 
spoke first, save in the morning salutation on deck. 
He never once joined the shivering group that clus- 
tered about the smoke-stack for warmth, but paced 
and paced, engaged apparently in serious thought. 

" I wish he would begin to lay the cable now," 
thought I, '' according to his promise at the banquet ; 
it would be such an excellent chance while he has 
us here so handy on shipboard." But night fell 
and day rose, mists drove and the sun shone, and 
the steamer went booming along, and the passengers 
chatted and walked and ate and drank, and still tlie 
great envoy made no sign of laying the cable. 

It was the most natural thing in the world for 
everybody aboard to want to say something to him. 
And what could be more natural than that the re- 
straint, which was self-imposed out of consideration 
for his comfort, should give way on the least provo- 
cation ? There, walking back and forth daily among 
them, went the man who had probably given them 



288 CHARLES DICKENS. 

more pleasure and delight than any other living, 
had cheered them in calamity, had heightened their 
joys, had cleared their vision to see the beauty and 
goodness that may lie in common surroundings, and 
created a gratitude in their hearts that cannot be 
measured. So in the course of three or four days 
all had a speaking acquaintance with him, and who- 
ever joined him found him easy of approach and 
not averse to talk. 

" I have knocked about the Channel a good deal, 
and have learned in that way," he explained to one 
who marvelled at his knowledge of sailor-craft. 
Whenever the heavy tramp of the gang was heard 
as the men reeled in the wet log-line, there stood 
Mr. Dickens watching it as it was pulled tight and 
dripping along the deck. Among the first to know 
what run the ship had made, few could ever carry 
him the news, spite of the uncertain hours at which 
the log was heaved. How distinctly I recall his 
figure as he climbed up the ladder to the deck ! 
First his low-crowned, round hat appeared ; then 
his ruddy face lit with his marvellously blue eyes ; 
then his double-breasted seaman's coat. On sunny 
days he would carry up in his hand a huge book 
bound in blue. On the cover was stamped a gilt 
picture of an elephant with uplifted trunk chasing a 
boy. It was a book on India. He would place 
this big volume on a bulkhead or bench, and sit 
down by it as if he contemplated reading. But he 



CHARLES DICKENS. 289 

never read a page of it while on deck. His quick 
glance was up at the sails, the mystery of ropes, the 
clouds, the way of the wind, and everywhere but on 
the book. 

On a day when the ship rolls heavily men's faces 
are often portentously long at dinner in the saloon. 
"If I could only keep my feet till the bell rings, I 
should get safely through," I observed one day. 

*' Take hot negus for lunch : it will keep you up 
much better than the ale," Mr. Dickens replied. 
Then, pursuing the subject, he said: "My worst 
time is in the morning when I get up : how do you 
manage then ? " 

" Watch the towels, and the moment they stop 
swinging make a dive for the lounge, seize my flask 
and take one spoonful of brandy." 

"But only one ; for if you take more," he said, 
curving one eyebrow and smiling, " you are defeated. 
That 's my plan also, and it works very well." 

Of course I prized hints from this source, espe- 
cially as they had a smack of the " Markis o' Granby" 
and the " Maypole." The chat turned on travel, on 
winter climates, went back to Europe, trundled 
down to Italy and his long residence at Genoa, and 
the beauty of the Riviera. The lovely features of 
the Cornice were tossed from hand to hand, as 
though we were capping verses. " How picturesque 
those villages ! " said he. " And what a balmy 
air I " exclaimed another. " And that blue sea in 



290 CHARLES DICKENS. 

front ! " pursued Dickens. " And the shining orange 
groves ! " " Yes, and backed with those rich hills I " 
he added with almost lyric fervor. At this moment 
a new-comer broke in with some odious remark 
about the number of "knots she 's running." He 
flung his great cobble-stone into the smooth flow of 
talk, and there was an end of it. 

One evening I was sitting alone on deck while 
teapots and lighted candles were being placed in 
the saloon below. Some one was climbing up the 
ladder, and I perceived the outlines of Mr. Dickens' 
hat and coat. He took a camp-stool and sat near 
me. After a word or two we travelled ahead of the 
ship to America. 

" How far is it from New York to Philadelphia? 
or, rather, how long is it ? for it 's absurd in these 
days to ask hov,^ far." After the comforting assur- 
ance that it was only three hours and a half, I 
asked him whether he remembered a certain vener- 
able lady of Philadelphia whom he had met when 
here before. He said : " Perfectly well ; indeed I 
never forget any thing ! " and repeated with some 
emphasis that he had a great memory. 

He knew the capacity of the opera-houses in the 
Eastern cities, and remarked that he preferred a 
small or medium-sized hall to read in — '' a room in 
which everybody can see my face," he said, ''for so 
much depends on the face and the lighter shades of 
voice." 



CHARLES DICKENS, 2gl 

"What do you mean by a good audience?" he 
asked. 

^''Good refers to size rather than quality, and 
mostly means a full house." 

At this moment a lady, wrapped in a water-proof 
and hood, came up and sat down on the deck by 
LIS. And then arose questions about Miss Adelaide 
Procter and other writers. 

" Did you know Mrs. Browning ? " asked the lady 
passenger. 

" Oh, yes, indeed ! " 

" Do tell me something about her ! " 

" Well, she was one of the smallest women you 
ever saw, and was ill a good deal. It was very 
funny to see the way Browning used to carry her 
about all over Europe." The talk fell on Brown- 
ing's plays "Colombe's Birthday" and "The Blot in 
the 'Scutcheon " — " that remarkable thing in litera- 
ture, a tragedy without a crime ! " somebody said. 
Mr. Dickens warmly assented to the praise given to 
the dramatic fragment. 

" Notwithstanding its beauty, I suppose Browning 
never intended it to be acted ? " asked one. 

"Oh, yes," he replied ; "Browning requested me 
once to fit it for the stage, and I did so. It was not 
the fault of the play that it was not successful ; it 
was because the audiences were not up to it." 

However skeptical I may have felt about this 
criticism, I said nothing, and Mr. Dickens expressed 



292 CHARLES DICKENS, 

Still further his admiration of Browning. He asked 
me if I had read the poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra." I 
had not, whereupon he commended it warmly, and 
advised me to read it. 

I had but one more talk with him, and that a 
brief one. One afternoon, during a walk together 
on deck, I said : " Mr. Dickens, if you don't object 
to my asking you something about your books — " 

" Not at all," he said, cordially, 

" I would ask you to give me a word to charac= 
terize certain qualities which the style assumes oc- 
casionally." I hated, I said, to employ the word 
melodramatic, feeling it to be inappropriate, but 
could find no other, and asked if he objected to it 
in any case. 

" What do you mean when you say melo- 
dramatic ? " he inquired. 

" When the style rises above the level of com» 
mon prose, and the sentiment lifts itself out of the 
region of common things, and the sentences actually 
become rhythmical. There is something of it in 
*the storm ' in 'David' "—he nodded affirmatively, — 
"in 'An Italian Dream ' in the 'Pictures from Italy,' 
the chapters on *Monseigneur ' in the ' Tale of Two 
Cities ' possess it ; and the passages wherein Lucie 
Manette hears the echoes of hurrying footsteps 
where no footsteps are, are all musical and sug- 
gestive of more than they say." 

" Yes, I recognize — I understand you perfectly '; 



CHARLES DICKENS. 293 

but that which you mean I should not call melo- 
dramatic : I call it picturesque^ 

Then dwelling on this for a moment, " Let me 
tell you," he said, "' the definition! gave to an Eng- 
lish artist the other day, who asked me to explain 
the difference between the theatrical and the dra- 
matic in a picture. I said, ' If any of the figures in 
the scene look as if they thought they were being 
looked at, if their expression in the least shows 
them to be aware of spectators, I should call it 
theatrical. But when they do their part with un- 
conscious energy, and are wholly subject to the 
governing emotions of the scene, it is dramatic' " 

He was elaborating this definition, when a large 
man joined us and put his clumsy foot into the 
talk and trampled it shapeless. 

When within sixty miles of Boston a pilot-boat 
came tossing around, with a pilot in her dressed in 
black cassimere trousers, a neat overcoat, and heavy 
kid gloves. The first question he asked as he reached 
the deck was whether Mr. Dickens was on board. 

And now we took our last dinner, the captain's 
dinner ; at the close of which Mr. Dickens agreea- 
bly surprised the company by making a spirited 
little speech, and proposing the health of the cap- 
tain in such genial words as to overcome that offi- 
cer's wonted taciturnity. A few hours after this we 
were in Boston Harbor, where a band of gentle- 
manly marauders boarded the steamer, seized their 
prize, and bore him away. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

Was he a cynic ? — Anecdotes of his benevolence and kindness — His 
appearance in society — John Esten Cooke's memoranda of an 
hour's conversation — Charlotte Bronte's impressions of Thackeray. 

IN a pleasant paper in Appletons' Mojtthly, 
called "An Hour with Thackeray," Mr. 
John Esten Cooke tells us that, having been 
invited to pay a call upon the great English 
novelist while he was stopping in Richmond, 
his first impression was one of surprise at the 
remarkable difference between the real man 
and the malicious cartoons of him drawn by 
his English critics. These gentlemen seemed 
to have dipped their pens in gall before draw- 
ins^ his likeness. Their outlines were bit in 
with acid. There had never lived, according 
to them, a more unamiable human being than 
the author of '' Vanity Fair." Persons with 
any respect for themselves could not endure 
him. Plis heart was cold, his disposition cyni- 

294 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 295 



cal, and his manners so haughty and repelling 
that everybody thrown in contact with him 
became his enemy. As he strode by, he 
scarcely deigned to return the salutes of his 
friends, if he had any. He would stare, or re- 
spond with a curt nod. He would sit up hob- 
nobbing with intimates until four in the morn- 
ing, and then pass the same persons in the 
afternoon, as he rode toward the Park, with a 
movement of the head so cold and indifferent 
that it quite froze them. He rarely smiled ; 
had nothing about him either natural or invit- 
ing ; to quote the words of one of his critics : 
*' His bearing is cold and uninviting, his style 
of conversation either openly cynical or affect- 
edly good-natured and benevolent; his bon- 
homie is forced, his wit biting, his pride easily 
touched." As to his character, that was said 
to be as disagreeable as his manners. '' He was 
one mass of gloom and misanthropy. Cyni- 
cism was his philosophy and contempt his re- 
ligion. A mixture of Timon and Diogenes, 
he went about with a scowl on his brow and a 
sneer on his lips, refusing to see good any- 
where, and spitting out his hate and venom on 
the whole human species." This was the sort 
of man he had expected to see, and he was 
surprised, therefore, to find in his place *' a tall. 



296 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

ruddy, simple-looking Englishman, who cor- 
dially held out his hand, and met me with a 
friendly smile. There was nothing like a 
scowl on the face, and it Vv^as neither thin, 
bilious, nor ill-natured, but plump, rubicund, 
and indicative of an excellent digestion. His 
voice was neither curt nor ungracious, but 
courteous and cordial — the voice of a gentle- 
man receiving a friend under his own roof. In 
person he was a ' large man ' — his height I 
think was above six feet. His eyes were mild 
in expression, his hair nearly gray, his dress 
plain and unpretending. Every thing about 
the individual produced the impression that 
pretence was hateful to him. He was quiet in 
his manner, and spoke slowly and deliberately 
in a low tone — apparently uttering his thought 
as it rose to his lips without selecting his 
words. After spending ten minutes with him, 
it was easy to see that he was a man of the 
world in the best sense of the phrase, and 
neither a bitter Juvenal nor a shy ' literary 
man,' living only in books. There was, in- 
deed, almost nothing of the typical litterateur 
about him. His face and figure indicated a 
decided fondness for roast beef, canvas-back 
ducks — of which he spoke in terms of enthu- 
siasm, — plum-pudding, ' Bordeaux,'— of which 



WILL/AM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 297 

he told me he drank a bottle daily at his din- 
ner, — and all the material good things of hfe. 
The idea of a disordered liver seems absurd in 
connection with him. The fact is, Mr. Thack- 
eray was a hon vivant — not given to wearing 
his heart upon his sleeve, but prone to good- 
fellowship, fond of his ease, and liked nothing 
better than to loll in his arm-chair, tell or listen 
to a good story, sing a good song, smoke a 
good cigar, and ' have his talk out ' with his 
chosen friends. 

As to the general tone of his conversation, 
what impressed me most forcibly was his en- 
tire unreserve, and the genuine bonhomie of his 
air — a bonhomie which struck me as being any 
thing but what his critic, Mr. Yates, called it — 
' forced.' The man seemed wholly simple and 
natural, and I could fancy him saying : ' I 
have nothing to conceal from you, friend ; you 
see me just as I am, and you are welcome to 
use your strongest magnifying-glasses to dis- 
cover any hidden humbug about me, and to 
drag it forth and denounce it publicly. I say 
what I think, and am not trying to make any 
impression upon you, good or bad. My desire 
is to be friendly and natural, avoiding what is 
hateful to me — sham and deceit.' He smiled 
easily, and evidently enjoyed the humorous 



298 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

side of things, but in private, as in delivering 
his lectures on Swift and some others, there 
was an undertone of sadness in his voice." 

Thackeray was a man of the world, to be 
sure, and one whom experience of the world 
had thoroughly disillusioned, but the well of 
natural tenderness was never dried in his heart. 
" He rejoiced," says Bayard Taylor, " with a 
fresh boyish delight, in every evidence of an 
unspoiled nature in others, in every utterance 
which may have seemed to him overfaith in 
the good. The more he was saddened b}'' his 
knowledge of human weakness and folly, the 
more gratefully he welcomed strength, virtue, 
sincerity. His eyes never unlearned the habit 
of that quick moisture which honors the true 
word and noble deed." 

All who were ever admitted to the confi- 
dence of this great and tender-hearted genius 
have their own stories to tell of his noble gen- 
erosities and kindnesses and acts of quiet be- 
nevolence. 

To give some immediate pleasure, Mr. Trol- 
lope says, was the great delight of his life — a 
sovereign to a school-boy, gloves to a girl, a 
dinner to a man, a compliment to a woman. 
His charity was overflowing, his generosity ex- 
cessive. " I heard once a story of woe from a 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 299 



man who was the dear friend of both of us. 
The gentleman wanted a large sum of money 
instantly — something under two thousand 
pounds, — had not natural friends who could 
provide it, but must go utterly to the wall 
without it. Pondering over this sad con- 
dition of things, I met Thackeray, and told him 
the story. ' Do you mean to say I am to find 
tw^o thousand pounds?' he said, angrily, with 
some expletives. I explained that I had not 
even suggested the doing of any thing — only 
that we might discuss the matter. Then there 
came over his face a peculiar smile and a wink 
in his eye, and he whispered his suggestion, as 
though half ashamed of his meanness : ' I '11 
go half,' he said, ' if anybody will go the rest.' 
And he did go half, at a day or two's notice, 
though the gentleman was no more than 
simply a friend. I am glad to be able to add 
that the money was quickly repaid." There 
are current many other anecdotes of the same 
kind. A friend entering Thackeray's bedroom 
in Paris found him placing some napoleons it 
a pill-box, on the lid of which was written, 
"One to be taken occasionally." When 
questioned as to what he was doing, " Well," he 
replied, " there is an old person here who says 
she is very ill, and I strongly suspect that this 



300 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

is the sort of medicine she wants. Dr. Thack- 
eray intends to leave it with her himself. Let 
us walk out together." 

Blanchard Jerrold was one morning at Hor- 
ace Mayhew's chambers in Regent Street, whenj 
a knock was heard at the door, and a voice! 
cried from without : " It 's no use, Porry May- 
hew ; open the door." 

'' It 's dear old Thackeray," said Mayhew, 
instinctively putting chairs and table in order 
to do honor to the friend of whom he never 
spoke without pride. 

Thackeray came in, saying cheerily : '' Well, 
young gentlemen, you '11 admit an old fogy." 

He always spoke of himself as an old man, 
says Jerrold. Between him and Mayhew there 
were not many years. He took up the papers 
lying about, talked the gossip of the day, and 
then suddenly said — with his hat in his hand — 
" I was going away without doing part of the 
business of my visit. You spoke the other day 
at the dinner [the Punch weekly meeting] of 
poor George, Somebody — most unaccounta- 
bly—has returned me a five-pound note I lent 
him a long time ago. I did n't expect it: so 
just hand it to George ; and tell him, when his 
pocket will bear it, to pass it on to some poor 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. ^01 

fellow of his acquaintance. By-bye." A nod 
and he was gone. 

The reason that Thackeray's real nature was 
so generally misunderstood by his cotempora- 
ries is not far to seek. He was a reaction 
against the spirit of his age. He came upon 
the world at the time when the grotesque 
sham into which Byronism had degenerated at 
the hands of Byron's admirers was emasculat- 
ing literature ; when the Great Soul was the 
popular ideal, — the gifted, gloomy, mysterious 
being who did not love the world nor the world 
him, but who usually had an amiable weakness 
for the world's wife. He was a protest against 
all this. He was a protest, too, against the 
rampant egotism that found its fullest expres- 
sion in the fiction of that period, in the earlier 
novels, for instance, of Bulwer and Disraeli, 
mere clever poseurs without any earnestness 
or sincerity, who were continually proclaiming 
their own merits from the house-tops, and in- 
viting public attention to the beauty of their 
own emotions. In the vigor of his protest 
against all this brag and bluster, Thackeray 
may have gone to the opposite extreme. A 
man who is anxious to keep straight is liable 
to bend over on the opposite side. So, in the 
reaction against unreal enthusiasms Thackeray 



302 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 



1 



habitually talked under what he felt. He 
veiled his deeper feelings beneath a self-re- 
specting reticence ; he would have shrunk from 
making public exhibition of the pulsations of a 
troubled heart. A friend who knew him and 
valued him, and who tells us that in the dis- 
cussion of serious subjects he was apt, when 
pressed, to have recourse to banter, acknowl- 
edges that much of his light talk. was intended 
not so much to conceal as to keep down a sen- 
sibility amounting almost to womanliness 
which belonged to his nature, and which con- 
trasted, one might almost say struggled, with 
the manliness which was equally its character- 
istic. '' He could not read any thing pathetic 
without actual discomfort, and was unable, for 
example, to go through with the * Bride of 
Lammermoor.' I have heard him allude to 
some early sorrows, especially the loss of a 
child, in a way which showed how sharp and 
painful was the recollection after the lapse of 
many years. That he could sympathize 
warmly with others I infer from much that I 
have heard. His well-known sensitiveness 
sprung perhaps from the same root as his sen- 
sibility. ' I like Thackeray,' an English critic 
once said in my hearing, ' but I cannot respect 
him— he is so sensitive.' But his sensitiveness 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 303 

made harsh things distasteful to him even 
when he was not himself the object of them.. 
' You fiend ! ' he said to a friend who was 
laughing over a sharp attack on an acquaint- 
ance of both, and refused to hear or read a 
word of it." 

A story told by Mr. H odder, who was for 
some years Thackeray's private secretary, 
seems to me to shed a great deal of light upon 
the real tenderness of heart that lay beneath 
that cynic exterior. 

" On the morning of his departure for Ameri- 
ca," says Hodder, ''he was to start by an 
early train, and when I arrived (for it had been 
previously arranged that I should see him be- 
fore he left) 1 found him in his study, and his 
two daughters in the dining-room — all in a very 
tearful condition ; and I do not think I am far 
wrong in saying that if ever man's strength was 
overpowered by woman's weakness, it was so 
upon this occasion ; for Mr. Thackeray could 
not look at his daughters without betraying a 
moisture in his eyes, which he in vain strove to 
conceal. Nevertheless he was enabled to at- 
tend to several money transactions which it 
was necessary he should arrange before leav- 
ing ; and to give me certain instructions about 
the four volumes of his ' Miscellanies ' then 



304 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

in course of publication, and which he begged 
me to watch in their passage through the press, 
with a view to a few foot-notes that might be 
thought desirable. Then came the hour for 
parting! A cab was at the door, the luggage Ij 
had all been properly disposed of, and the ser- 
vants stood in the hall, to notify, by their looks, 
how much they regretted their master's de- 
parture. * This is the moment I have dread- 
ed ! ' said Thackeray, as he entered the dining- 
room to embrace his daughters ; and when he 
hastily descended the steps of the door he 
knew that they would be at the window to 

' Cast one longing, lingering look behind.' 

* Good-by,' he murmured, in a suppressed voice, 
as I followed him to the cab ; ' keep close be- 
hind me, and let me try to jump in unseen.' 

'' The instant the door of the vehicle was 
closed behind him, he threw himself back into 
a corner and buried his face in his hands." 

'' Let me try to jump in unseen " — that is an 
eminently characteristic expression. Even in 
that moment of sorrow he was fearful lest 
some passer-by should observe his weakness. 
This was not the temper of mind of (for in- 
stance) Dickens. There was a theatrical ele- 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 305 

ment in his nature, which would have been 
gratified, I fancy, at finding himself the central 
figure in a touching scene. The famous 
'* Put that in my biography," in his letter to 
Forster, recurs to the mind with ugly persist- 
ence. And I am quite sure that M. Victor 
Hugo would have been delighted to bring his 
whole family before the footlights, and would 
have solemnly embraced them one by one and 
accepted the plaudits of the gallery with a 
pleased sense of deserving them. 

And yet Thackeray did not shun the world's 
eye ; on all subjects but that of his own emo- 
tions he was perfectly frank and open. He 
was of much too healthy a mind, v/e are told, 
to fear to walk about in his habit as he lived 
in private, and he never shrouded himself in 
mysteries, nor broke upon his friends, at stated 
seasons, in a blaze of glory. He had a delight- 
ful habit of taking all he met into his confi- 
dence, of telling them his " little miseries " — 
how discourteous were some of the small en- 
emies who attacked him ; how unreasonable 
were the small friends who besieged him. Of 
his literary life he spoke with refreshing frank- 
ness. '' They have only bought so many of my 
new book." " Have you seen the abuse of my 
last number?" " What am I to turn my hand 



3C6 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. ^ 

to ? they are getting tired of my novels.'* 
These are given by Trollope as samples of his 
utterances in open company. And we may be 
sure that they were not spoken querulously, 
but with a chuckle of am.usement at his own 
expense, " The gravity of that Vv^hite head," 
says James Hannay, " v/ith its noble brow, and 
thoughtful face full of feeling and meaning, 
enhanced the piquancy of his playfulness, and 
of^the little personal revelations which came 
with such a grace from the depths of his kindly 
nature. V^'^hen Vv^e congratulated him, many 
years ago, on the touch in 'Vanity Fair' in 
v/hich Becky admires her husband when he is 
giving Lord Steyne the chastisement which 
ruins Iter for life, ' Well,' he said, ' when I 
wrote the sentence, I slapped my fist on the 
table, and said, tJiat is a touch of genius !' The 
incident is a trifle, but it will reveal, we sus- 
pect, an element of fervor, as well as a hearti- 
ness of frankness in recording the fervor, both 
equally at variance with the vulgar conception 
of him. This frankness and bonhomie made 
liim delightful in a tete-a-tete^ and gave a pleas- 
ant human flavor to talk full of sense, and wis- 
dom, and experience, and lighted up by the 
gaiety of the true London man of the world." 
I have ah'eady quoted a paragraph from a 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 307 

paper by Mr. Cooke, and as it affords a good 
example of the frank and genial manner in 
which the great writer was wont to speak of 
himself and his performances, I subjoin the re. 
mainder of it here. 

AN HOUR WITH THACKERAY. 

Having no business to engage me one morning, I 
went to call on him at his hotel, and found him in 
his private parlor, lolling in an easy-chair, and 
smoking. This good or bad habit, as the reader 
pleases, was a favorite one with him. He was a 
dear lover of his cigar, and I had presented him 
with a bundle of very good small " Plantations," 
which he afterward spoke highly of, lamenting that 
his friend G. P. R. James, then consul at Rich- 
mond, would come and smoke them all. On this 
morning he had evidently nothing to occupy him, 
and seemed ready for a . friendly talk. Smoking 
was the first topic, and he said : 

*' I am fond of my cigar, you see. I always be- 
gin writing with one in my mouth." 

*' After breakfast, I suppose ? I mean that you 
probably write in the forenoon ? " 

" Yes, the morning is my time for composing 
I can't write at night. I find it excites me so that 
I cannot sleep." 

"May I ask if you ever dictate your books to 
an amanuensis ? " I said. " I ask this question, Mr. 



3o8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 



Thackeray, because our friend Mr. G. P. R. James 
says that the power to dictate is born with people. If 
it is not a natural gift, he says it can not be acquired." 

" I don't know," Mr. Thackeray replied. " I 
have dictated a good deal. The whole of ' Es-B 
mond ' was dictated to an amanuensis." '^ 

'' I should not have supposed so — the style is so 
terse that I would have fancied you wrote it. ' Es- 
mond ' is one of the greatest favorites among your 
works in this country. I always particularly liked 
the chapter where Esmond returns to Lady Castle- 
wood, ' bringing his sheaves with him,' as she says." 

" I am glad it pleased you. I wish the v/hole 
book was as good. But we can't play first fiddle 
all the time." 

" You dictated this chapter ? " 

" Yes — the whole work. I also dictated all of 
^ Pendennis.' I can't say I think much of ' Pen- 
dennis ' — at least of the execution. It certainly 
drags about the middle, but I had an attack of ill- 
ness about the time I reached that part of the book, 
and could not make it any better than it is." 

Another allusion to " Esmond," and his portrait 
of Marlborough, brought from Mr. Thackeray's lips, 
in a musing tone, the single word " Rascal ! " and 
he then inquired in a very friendly manner what I 
had written. I informed him, and he said : 

" Well, if I were you, I would go on v/riting — 
some day you will write a book which will make 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 3O9 

your fortune. Becky Sharp made mine. I married 
early, and wrote for bread ; and ' Vanity Fair ' was 
my first successful work. I like Becky in that 
book. Sometimes I think I have myself some of 
her tastes. I like what are called Bohemians, and 
fellows of that sort. I have seen all sorts of society 
— dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies, authors 
and actors and painters — and, taken altogether, I 
think I like painters the best, and 'Bohemians' 
generally. They are more natural and unconven- 
tional ; they wear their hair on their shoulders if 
they wish, and dress picturesquely and carelessly. 
You see how I made Becky prefer them, and that 
sort of life, to all the fine society she moved in. 
Perhaps you remember where she comes down in 
the world, toward the end of the book, and associ- 
ates with people of all sorts, Bohemians and the 
rest, in their garrets." 

*' I remember very well." 

" I like that part of the book. I think that part 
is well done." 

" As you speak of Becky Sharp, Mr. Thackeray," 
I said, " there is one mystery about her which I 
should like to have cleared up." 

"What is that?" 

' Nearly at the end of the book there is a picture 
of Jo Sedley in his night-dress, seated — a sick old 
man — in his chamber ; and behind the curtain is 
Becky, glaring and ghastly, grasping a dagger." 



310 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

" I remember." 

" Beneath the picture is the single word ' Clytem- 
nestra.' " 

'' Yes." 

" Did Becky kill him, Mr. Thackeray ? " 

This question seemed to afford the person to 
whom it was addressed, material for profound re- 
flection. He smoked meditatively, appeared to be 
engaged in endeavoring to arrive at the solution of 
some problem, and then with a secretive expression 
' — a '' slow smile " dawning on his face— replied : 

" I don't know ! " 

A desultory conversation ensued on the subject 
of Becky Sharp, for whom, in spite of her depravi- 
ty, it seemed very plain that Mr. Thackeray had a 
secret liking, or, if not precisely a liking, at least an 
am.used sympathy, due to the pluck and persever- 
ance with which she pursued the objects she had in 
view. And then, from this lady and her sayings 
and doings, the conversation passed to Mr. Thack- 
eray's other mauvais siijets, male and female ; and I 
said that I considered the old Earl of Crabs, in the 
sketches relating to " Mr. Deuceace," as the most 
finished and altogether perfect scoundrel of the 
whole list. To this Mr. Thackeray was disposed to 
assent, and I asked if the Earl was drawn from any 
particular person. 

" I really don't know," was the reply. " I don't 
remember ever meeting with any special person as 
the original." 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 3II 

" Then you must have drawn him from your 
imagination, or from general observation." 

" I suppose so — I don't know — I may have seen 
him somewhere." 

And after smoking for several moments, with 
that air of silent meditation which his friends must 
often have observed, Mr. Thackeray added, in the 
tone of a man indulging in soliloquy : 

" I really don't know where I get all these rascals 
in my books. I have certainly never lived with 
such people." 

It did not seem to occur to this profound and 
subtle observer of human nature that daily asso- 
ciation with the class to which the Earl of Crabs, 
Lord Steyne, and others belonged, was not neces- 
sary to the just delineation of the personages. He 
had looked from behind his glasses, v/ith those keen 
eyes of his, upon the moving throng of rascaldom, 
in London, at Rome, on the Parisian boulevards, 
and everywhere, and the penetrating glance had 
photographed the figures upon his brain — tlieir in- 
ward being as well as their outward sh.ow, — after 
which to reproduce them in his books was, so to 
say, a mere mechanical process. 

Mr. Thackeray spoke of himself and his v/ritings 
with entire candor and unreserve, of v/hich I shall 
give an instance before concluding this brief sketch; 
and his opinions upon other writers were equally 
frank and outspoken. The elder Dumas, the author 



$12 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 



1 



of "Monte Cristo " and the " Mousquetaire " sto- 
ries, seemed to be an especial favorite with him. 

"Dumas is charming!" he exclaimed; ''every 
thing he writes interests me. I have been reading 
his ' Memoires.' I have read fourteen of the small 
volumes, all that are published, and they are delight- 
ful. Dumas is a wonderful man — wonderful. He 
is better than Walter Scott." 

" You refer, I suppose, to his historical novels, 
the ' Mousquetaires,' and the rest ? " 

'' Yes. I came near writing a book on the same 
subject, and taking Monsieur d'Artagnan for my 
hero, as Dumas has done in his ' Trois Mousque- 
taires.' D'Artagnan was a real character of the age 
of Louis XIV., and wrote his own 'Memoires.' I 
remember picking up a dingy little copy of them on 
an old bookstall in London, price sixpence, and in- 
tended to make something of it. But Dumas got 
ahead of me — he snaps up every thing. He is won- 
derful ! " 

" I am glad you like him, as he was always a 
great favorite of my own," I said ; " his verve is un- 



flaf^'o'incr " 



"Yes; his good spirits seem never to change. 
He amuses you, and keeps you in a good humor, 
which is not the effect produced on me by many 
writers. Some books please me and enliven me, 
and others depress me. I never could read 'Don 
Quixote' with pleasure. The book makes me sad." 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 3^3 

Further allusion to the old knight of La Mancha 
indicated that the source of this sadness was a pro- 
found sympathy with the crazed gentleman, — a 
commiseration so deep for his troubles and chi- 
meras of the brain, that the wit and farcical humor of 
Sancho were insufficient, in his opinion, to relieve 
the shadows of the picture. 

Passing from these literary discussions, Mr. 
Thackeray spoke of his tour in America, and said 
how much gratified he had been by his reception. 
Richmond was an attractive place to him, he de- 
clared — he had been received v^dth the utmost kind- 
ness and attention, — and he had always looked upon 
the Virginians as resembling more closely his own 
people in England than the Americans of other 
States. They seemed " more homely," I think was 
his phrase — which I recall, from the curious em- 
ployment of the word '' homely " in the sense of 
'* home-like." 

" Your American travels v^'ill no doubt give you 
the material for a volume on this country," I said. 

"Yes ; I have seen a great deal," was his reply. 

"Well, I don't think you will abuse us, Mr. 
Thackeray." 

"I shall not write any thing upon America," he 
said ; " my secretary may — he is quite capable. 
And, as to abusing you, if I do, I 'm ! " 

The sentence terminated in a manner rather more 
emphatic than would have suited the atmosphere of 



314 William makepeace thackeray. 



a drav/ing-room ; and it was plainly to be seen that 
Mr. Thackeray had thoroughly made up his mind 
not to follow in the footsteps of Mr. Dickens, and 
criticise his entertainers— " throw their plates at 
their heads," as Scott said when he declined accept- 
ing an invitation to dine with the old Count Barras, 
near Paris, of whom he declared he would probably 
have some harsh things to say in his "Life of Na- 
poleon." Mr. Thackeray had the instinct that, one 
would think, should control all persons of good 
feeling and good breeding, and never wrote a line, 
that I am aware of, which any citizen of the coun- 
try. North or South, would have wished unwritten. 

Further conversation upon Virginia, the charac- 
ter of the country, people, etc., led Mr. Thackeray 
to speak of what was then a mere literary intention 
— the composition of " The Virginians," which was 
not writicn, I think, or at least did not appear, until 
two or three years afterward. 

" I shall write a novel with the scene laid here," 
he said. 

" In America ? I am very glad, and I hope you 
will be able to do so soon." 

" No. I shall not write it for about tv/o years." 

" Two years ? " 

" Yes. It will take me at least two 'years to col- 
lect my materials and become acquainted with the 
subject. I can't write upon a subject I know 
nothing of. I am obliged to read up upon it, and get 
my ideas." 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. S^? 



" Your work will be a novel ? " 

"Yes, and relating to your State. I shall give it 
the title of ' The Two Virginians,' "—a title which, 
as the reader knows, was afterward changed for the 
shorter and simpler "The Virginians." 

As I expressed a natural pleasure at the prospect 
of having a novel painting Virginia life and society 
from the author of " Esmond," Mr. Thackeray 
spoke more particularly of his design, thereby ex- 
hibiting, I thought, and think still, a remarkable 
instance of the simplicit}^, directness, and absence 
of secreiiveiiess in his character. I was nearly an 
entire stranger, but he spoke without reserve of his 
intended book, telling me his whole idea. 

" I shall lay the scene in Virginia, during the 
Revolution," he said. " There will be two brothers, 
who will be prominent characters ; one will take 
the English side in the war, and the other the 
American, and they will both be in love v/ith the 

same girl." 

"That will be an excellent plot," 1 said, "and 
your novel will be a full-blooded historical one." 

" It will deal with the history of the time." 

" You have a striking de'noumcnf — " 

"A denofimentV 

"Yorktown." 

Having so said, I became suddenly aware that I 
had committed something closely resembling a so- 
cial faux pas, inasmuch as I had quietly recom- 



3 1 6 WILLIAM MAKE PEA CE THA CKERA V. 



mended to an English gentleman to take the sur- 
render of Lord Cornwallis as the climax of his drama, 

" I really must beg your pardon, Mr. Thack- 
eray," I said with some embarrassment. 

" Beg my pardon ? " he said, turning his head and 
looking at me with a good deal of surprise. 

" For my ill-breeding." 

His expression of surprise was more pronounced 
than before at these Avords, and he evidently did 
not understand my meaning in the least. 

" I mean," I said, ''that I quite lost sight of the 
fact that I was talking with an English gentleman. 
Yorktown was the scene of Lord Cornwallis' sur- 
render, and might not be an agreeable deno4me7itr 

" Ah ! " he said, smiling, '' it is nothing. I accept 
Yorktown." 

"I know you admire Washington." 

"Yes, indeed. He was one of the greatest men 
that ever lived." 

My host had evidently no susceptibilities to wound 
in reference to these old historical matters, so I 
said, smiling : 

" Everybody respects and loves Washington now ; 
but is it not singular how the r^i-?/// changes our 
point of view? The English view in '76 was that 
Washington vras a rebel, and if you had caught him 
you would probably have hanged him." 

To this Mr. Thackeray replied in a tone of great 
earnestness : 

'•' We had better have lost North America." 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 31/ 

A curious episode in Thackeray's life is that 
v/hich connects him with Charlotte Bronte. 
The author of "■ Jane Eyre " had long wor- 
shipped Thackeray from a distance, and had 
dedicated that book to him in words of the 
heartiest and most respectful admiration. But 
she had never seen him until the time of her 
second visit to London, when he called upon 
her. She afterward told Mrs. Gaskell, in de- 
scribing this first call, that she found it difficult 
to decide whether he was speaking in jest or in 
earnest, and that she had, she believed, com- 
pletely misunderstood an inquiry of his, made 
on the gentlemen's coming into the drawing- 
room. He asked her " if she had perceived the 
secret of their cigars" ; to which she replied 
literally, discovering, a minute afterward, by 
the smile on several faces, that he was alluding 
to a passage in '* Jane Eyre." Altogether, she 
says in one of her letters, she was '' fearfully 
stupid," although she had felt sufficiently at 
her ease with the other distinguished people 
she had met in London. But then Thackeray, 
she explains, " is a Titan of mind. His presence 
and powers impress one deeply in an intellectual 
sense ; I do not see him and know him as a man. 
All the others are subordinate." About a week 
later she writes as follows : *' Mr. Thackeray 



3l8 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 

made a morning call and sat above two hours. 
Mr. Smith only was in the room the whole 
time. He described it afterward as ' a queer 
scene,' and I suppose it was. The giant sat 
before me ; I was moved to speak of some of 
his shortcomings (literary of course) : one by one 
the faults came into my head, and one by one 
I brought them out, and sought some explana- 
tion or defence. He did defend himself, like a 
great Turk and heathen ; that is to say, the ex- 
cuses were often worse than the crime itself. 
The matter ended in decent amity; if all be 
well, I am to dine at his house this evening." 
She attended one of his lectures, which, she 
says, was a genuine treat to her. " It was 
given in Willis' Rooms, where the Almack balls 
are held — a great painted and gilded saloon, 
with long sofas for benches. The audience 
was said to be the cream of London society, 
and it looked so I did not at all expect the 
great lecturer would know me or notice me 
under these circumstances, with admiring duch- 
esses and countesses seated in rows before him ; 
but he met me as I entered, shook hands, took 
me to his mother, whom I had not seen before, 
and introduced me. She is a fine, handsome, 
young-looking old lady ; was very gracious, 
and called, with one of her grand-daughters, 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 319 

next day." The lady who accompanied 
Miss Bronte noticed, after they had taken 
their seats, that Thackeray was pointing out 
her companion to several of his friends, but 
she hoped Miss Bronte herself would not per- 
ceive it. After some time, however, during 
which many heads had been turned round, and 
many glasses put up, in order to look at the 
author of " Jane Eyre," Miss Bronte said: "I 
am afraid Mr. Thackeray has been playing me 
a trick " ; but she soon became too much ab- 
sorbed in the lecture to notice the attention 
that was being paid. When the lecture was 
ended, Thackeray came down from the plat- 
form, and making his way toward her, asked 
her for her opinion, '' a question eminently 
characteristic, and reminding me, even in this 
his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive 
restlessness, that absence of what I considered 
desirable self-control, which were amongst his 
faults. He should not have cared, just then, to 
ask what I thought, or what anybody thought ; 
but he did care, and he was too natural to con- 
ceal, too impulsive to repress his wish. Well ! 
if I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his 
naivete. I would have praised him ; I had 
plenty of praise in my heart, but alas ! no 
words on my lips. Who has words at the 



320 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY- 



right moment? I stammered some lame ex- 
pressions, but was truly glad when other peo- 
ple, coming up with profuse congratulations, 
covered up my deficiency by their redundancy." 
This last paragraph, to say truth, is not copied 
from Miss Bronte's letters on Thackeray, but 
from Miss Snow's comments in '' Villette," upon 
a similar action on the part of M. Paul Emanuel, 
—comments that Mrs. Gaskell, when she came 
to read them, at once recognized as being '' al- 
most identical" with the remarks that Lucy 
Snow's creator had made concerning Thackeray 
when she related this incident to her. Miss 
Bronte was not equally gratified by all the 
lectures; that on Fielding deeply distressed 
her, on account of what she considered its 
levity of tone. " The hour spent in listening 
to it," she says, " was a painful hour. Had 
Thackeray owned a son, grown or growing, 
and a son brilliant but reckless, would he have 
spoken in that light way of courses that lead to 
disgrace and the grave ? " It was poor Branwell 
Bronte, doubtless, she was thinking of, when 
she penned those lines. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 

Anecdotes and Reminiscences of William Black, Matthew Arnold, 
William Morris, Jean Ingelow, Owen Meredith, " Ouida." 

IN this chapter are grouped together a num- 
ber of newspaper cuttings in regard to 
some of the celebrities among the present gen- 
eration of authors. The embarrassment of 
riches, however, which occurs with most of the 
elder writers, who have been much interviewed 
and written about, gives way, in the case of 
the younger ones, to a poverty of details that 
renders even trifles of importance. Some of 
the paragraphs here collected are consequently 
given to the reader with the full knowledge 
that their interest mainly depends upon the 
dearth of fuller and more authentic informa- 
tion. 

WILLIAM BLACK. 

These two newspaper cuttings in regard to 

321 



322 SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 

the leader among the younger novelists of the 
day may be of interest to his admirers. 

Among very pleasant English recollections of a 
year ago comes an evening spent at the house of a 
writer as well known on this side of the water as in 
his own land. 

It was a reception given late in the season, but 
the hospitable drawing-rooms were filled. The host 
and hostess entertained with that charming ease and 
pleasant cordiality which is so notably English, and 
if unlike our hearty American warmth, answers the 
purpose equally well. 

It afforded us a curious pleasure to watch the ar- 
rivals and note the announcements. There were 
many faces to be remembered, many names whose 
familiar power deepened when v/e stood face to face 
with their owners. Presently through the crowd 
came a young man of twenty- eight or thirty — slightly 
built, with earnest eyes and a long brown mustache. 
There was nothing of the conventional literary man 
in his appearance. His dress v/as a faultless evening 
attire. He wore the fresh bouio7im'ere so indispens- 
able from ten o'clock on Piccadilly to midnight in a 
Hyde-Park drawing-room. He carried himself with 
a careless ease which had in it neither affectation 
nor consciousness that a hundred eyes were watch- 
ing him, that many voices had said half audibly, 
" There is the author of ' A Princess of Thule.'" 



SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. S^S 



To US, at that time, he seemed simply the man 
whose genius had wrought Coquette, the gentle- 
hearted daughter of Heth ; and noting his youthful 
appearance, his quiet, unobservant manner, we 
looked vainly for outward indications of his peculiar 
power. Presently, however, when engaged in con- 
versation, there came a new light into his face. His 
eyes brightened with a keen intelligence, and the 
deepening lines about his mouth gave a suggestion 
of reserve force. 

Mr. Black is a charming conversationalist. He is 
extremely modest about his literary successes, but is 
willing to gratify one's curiosity about the whys and 
wherefores of some of his stories in the most agree- 
able way. I remember when some one, with true 
Yankee inquisitiveness, said, " Oh, Mr. Black, why 
did Coquette die ? " he answered with a mixture of 
modesty and good-will, pleasant to recall : '' Why, 
you see, I did n't want to make her die — but I had 
to do it. If she had lived, the reader would not 
have remembered her six hours after he had closed 
the book ! " — Appletons' journal. 

Of IMr. Black individually I fear I can give only 
an inadequate impression, so much of his charm 
depends upon his personal presence. I can say 
that he is slight and not very tall, with a finely 
modelled head and face, broad forehead, and strong, 
rather square jaws, dark hair, and expressive dark 



i 



324 SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 

eyes that regard you most kindly through the 
habitual glasses that he wears ; a dark mustache ; 
and has the faintest suspicion of a difficulty with 
his r's ; that he is courteous and genial in manner, 
with a little trick of looking down as he talks and 
suddenly raising his eyes with a quick, keen expres- 
sion at any remark that interests or amuses him. 
In conversation he is charming, and in his own 
house and at his own table a most gracious and 
kindly host. His fund of story, anecdote, and 
repartee is inexhaustible, while to be v/ith him is 
but constantly to recall Dick Steele's tribute to the 
Lady Elizabeth Hastings, that '^ to know her was a 
liberal education." He has slender and well-formed 
hands, and he is always 2. preux chevalier in his ap- 
pearance. This is only a bald description of him, 
but more is impossible ; it is necessary to see him 
and hear him to thoroughly appreciate his varied 
attributes. Mrs. Black is, as according to the law 
of contrasts she should be, a blonde with blue eyes, 
a fair complexion, and soft plenteous golden hair 
that waves about her head most artistically. She 
is clever and interesting beyond most women, all 
the more so perhaps because of the little air of 
sadness that surrounds her. She has a sweet 
voice and pleasant manners, is an intense admirer 
of her husband, though thoroughly capable of criti- 
cising keenly and impartially his work, only desirous 
that he shall not lose his position with the public 
that he has so honestly won. — The Hoine yotirttal. 



SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 325 

MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

Mr. Arnold is a man of so much prominence in 
the world of letters, that it is only because of the 
poverty of details in regard to his personality 
that we have, as it were, relegated him into a 
corner. 

In appearance the apostle of culture is, 
if not actually disappointing, at least very dif- 
ferent from the ideal one might form of him 
from his writings. He is a large man, with 
prominent and somewhat harsh features, who 
parts his hair in the middle, and v/ears very ill- 
fitting clothes. His face indicates character 
and force more than refinement, and altogether 
he gives the impression of a cynical and dis- 
appointed man of the world rather than of a 
poet. His manners are cold and distant, even 
to haughtiness — Mallock, who has caricatured 
him in his ''New Republic" under the name 
of Mr. Luke, calls him " supercilious-looking " 
— and he is not generally liked. By his few 
intimates, however, he is fully appreciated. 
Doubtless the coldness is only exterior — the 
incrustation behind which a sensitive nature 
protects itself from the indifference of the 
world. That he is really a man of warm sen- 
sibilities is well known to his friends. Within 



;26 SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 



<i! 



the limit of his means he is one of the most 
generous of men, and many stories might be 
told of his unostentatious private charities. 
" That Mr. Arnold is not an idealist only," says 
a writer in the UnivcT'sity Magazine^ " but as 
kindly-natured in matters practical as he is 
amusing in companionship or sparkling in criti- 
cism, we have had occasion to know. An arti- 
san poet with a true lyric gift, delicate health, 
and a wife and family to keep, told us how 
once, not long ago, when things were so bad 
with him that his children were asking for 
bread, Matthew Arnold sent such timely and 
generous supplies as brought grateful tears to 
the eyes of the recipients, and, interesting him- 
self in their case, got a subscription started for 
the poor fellow ; all was so delicately done that 
the mention of Matthew Arnold's name brings 
out a sincere ' God bless him ' in that family." 

WILLIAM MORRIS 

is described as entirely free from the peculiari- 
ties which are usually thought to appertain to 
literary men. Like R. D. Blackmore, who at 
first sight looks more like a farmer than a poet 
or a novelist, yet who grows upon the mind 
by the depth of his eye and the force of his 
presence, Mr. Morris might pass along in his 



SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. Z-7 

easy, unconventional costume without attract- 
ing the attention of his worshippers — unless, 
indeed, they were to scan the facial contour 
with an artist's eye. He is physically strong 
and hearty enough to afford good ground for 
the hope that he may live many years to enjoy 
the honors showered upon him. Mr. Morris' 
country-place, at which he resides during the 
greater portion of the year, is a mediaeval 
building, with fine grounds around it where he 
can enjoy to the fullest extent those rural soli- 
tudes that are the delight of all poets. Mr. 
Morris is an artist also, and has produced ex- 
cellent studies in distemper. He is, further, a 
thorough man of business and the manag- 
ing head of the house of Morris, Marshall, 
Faulkner, & Co., a great emporium and labora- 
tory for the production of artistic fabrics of 
the most varied, costly, and beautiful descrip- 
tion. The house was founded by Morris in 
1861, in conjunction with his artist friends, 
Madox Brown, Burne Jones, Rossetti, and- 
Webb. Having little capital to commence 
with, it was conducted on a small scale at first. 
Nor was it successful at once. The outside 
world was inclined to look upon it as merely 
the enterprise of a few young dreamers. The 
production of ornamental furniture and stained- 



328 SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 

glass windows was the principal work under- 
taken at first, Morris acting as designer, as 
well as his friends. Little by little the beauty 
of the new designs began to impress the public. 
As business improved, new departments were 
started. Carpets and paper-hangings were 
added to the list of wares, Morris himself 
working out the patterns to the smallest details ; 
and the house is at present one of the largest 
and wealthiest establishments in London. 

JEAN INGELOW. 

From the pages of an English periodical 
called The Queen^ I extract the following ac- 
count of an interview Avith this charming 
poetess, written by Miss L. M. Alcott. 

"Will you come and call on Jean Ingelow?" 
said ray hostess, one fine day. Of course I would. 
So away we went along a shady lane, with the old 
oaks of Holland Park on the one side, and the ivy- 
crowned walls of Aubury House on the other ; for, 
though a part of London, Netting Hill is rich in 
gardens, lawns, and parks, such as one sees only in 
England. Coming at last to a quiet street, where 
all the houses were gay with window-boxes full of 
flowers, we reached Miss Ingelow's. In the draw- 
ing-room we found the mother of the poetess, a 
truly beautiful old lady, in widow's cap and gown, 



SOxME YOUNGER WRITERS. 329 

with the sweetest, serenest face I ever saw. Two 
daughters sat with her, both older than I had 
fancied them to be, but both very attractive women. 
Eliza looked as if she wrote the poetry, Jean the 
prose — the former wore curls, had a delicate face, 
fine eyes, and that indescribable something whicli 
suggests genius ; the latter was plain, rather stout, 
hair touched with gray, shy yet cordial manners, 
and a clear, straightforward glance, which I liked 
so much that I forgave her on the spot for writing 
those dull stories. Gerald Massey was with them, 
a dapper little man, with a large, tall head, and very 
un-Englisli manner. Being oppressed with "the 
mountainous me," he rather bored the company 
with " my poems, my plans, and my publishers,'* 
till Miss Eliza politely devoted herself to him, leav- 
ing my friend to chat with the lovely old lady, and 
myself with Jean. Both being bashful, and both 
laboring under the delusion that it was proper 
to allude to each other's works, we tried to ex- 
change a few compliments, blushed, hesitated, 
laughed, and wisely took refuge in a safer subject. 
Jean had been abroad, so we pleasantly compared 
notes, and I enjoyed the sound of a peculiarly 
musical voice, in which I seemed to hear the breezy 
rhythm of some of her charming songs. The ice 
which surrounds every Englishman and woman was 
beginning to melt, when Massey disturbed me to 
ask what was thought of his books in America. 



330 SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 



\ 



As I really had not the remotest idea, I said so ; 
whereat he looked blank, and fell upon Longfellow, 
who seems to be the only one of our poets whom 
the English know or care about. The conversation 
became general, and soon after it was necessary to 
leave, lest the safety of the nation should be en- 
dangered by overstepping the fixed limits of a 
morning call. Later, I learned that Miss Ingelow 
v/as extremely conservative, and was very indignant 
when a petition for woman's right to vote was 
offered for her signature. A rampant Radical told 
me this, and shook her handsome head pathetically 
over Jean's narrowness ; but when I heard that 
once a week several poor souls dined comfortably 
in the pleasant home of the poetess, I forgave her 
conservatism, and regretted that an unconquerable 
aversion to dinner parties made me decline her in- 
vitation. 

OWEN MEREDITH. 

Of Robert Bulwer, the present Earl Lytton, a 
writer in Lippincotf s Magazine who was con- 
ducted over the Lytton mansion at Knebworth 
by the poet himself, presents the following 
description : " It would be difficult to find a 
better example of the extreme unaffectedness 
of modern Englishmen than ' Owen Meredith.' 
He speaks in a pure accent, without any 
'■ throatiness ' or drawl, and his manner has a 



SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 33 1 

charming simplicity and urbanity. A very 
brief acquaintance with him is sufficient to 
show that he has the discretion of the diplo- 
mat, the sympathetic delicacy of the poet, the 
catholicity of the man of the world, and the ease 
and dignity of the man of society. A quiet 
humorousness, occasionally edged with a touch 
of satire and cynicism, characterizes his con- 
versation ; but he is a man of deep and sincere 
feelings, which are sometimes expressed with 
an amusing bluntness of epithet. When show- 
ing us through one of the principal apart- 
ments, he pointed to a picture : ' There is that 
brute Rousseau. There was also a picture of 
Robespierre,' he added ; 'but I could n't stand 
that, and I had it taken away.' In personal ap- 
pearance he bears a marked resemblance to the 
pictures of his father, — the same long face, 
dark-complexioned, with sad-looking eyes, a 
full straight beard, and a prominent aquiline 
nose. He is firmly built, but rather below than 
above medium height, and not of a massive 
frame. That he is nearly fifty years of age 
scarcely seems credible ; a reasonable guess 
would put his age at about forty." 

OUIDA. 

Miss Louisa de la Rame, the flashy genius 



332 SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 

who writes under the name of Ouida, is a 
lady on the shady side of forty, and is thus 
described by a newspaper correspondent : '' She 
is a fine-looi<:ing and very stylish person, not 
handsome, but decidedly striking in appear- 
ance, and the only well-dressed Englishwoman 
I have as yet seen ; her toilettes being very 
elegant and tasteful, though she somewhat 
mars their effect by letting her back hair flow 
loose over her shoulders. Her hair is abun- 
dant and of a tawny yellow in color." " Her 
manners are fascinating," says another authori- 
ty ; " her conversation lively ; her eyes bright 
and expressive. She is saucy and audacious in 
her remarks; and sometimes indulges in lady- 
like slang ; but in spite of all this she is a great 
favorite among English and American resi- 
dents at Florence, and they are glad to accept 
invitations to her villa, for she entertains mag- 
nificently." She is said, however, to have a 
great dislike to her own sex, and rarely admits 
ladies to her receptions, confining her invita- 
tions to the masculine notabilities who happen 
to be visiting Florence. But her choicest 
affections are reserved for her dogs, whereof 
she has a large number, who fill up her house 
and surround her wherever she goes. She says 
they are more faithful than the human race. 



SOME YOUNGER WRITERS. 333 

Whenever one of them dies, he or she is buried 
with more respect than is sometimes shown to 
men and women. A story is told about one 
of her countrymen, who recently called on 
''Ouida" by permission, and showed much 
pride at being allowed to pay his respects in 
person to so famous a literary woman. He 
returned to the hotel at which he was stay- 
ing not altogether charmed with his visit. 
'' Well, what did you do at ' Ouida's ' ? " 
queried one of his lady friends. " I fed her 
dog with buns." *' And what did she say ? 
What did she do ? " ** Nothing ; she fed the 
dog too." '' Ouida " is fond of driving, and 
she is often seen in the Cascine and along 
the Lung' Arno, in a lofty and stylish drag, 
holding the reins herself and driving with such 
haste that she runs into hay-wagons. 

THE END. 



PUBLICATION^ 6^ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 



'' An interesting and useful little book."— iV. Y. Times. 



AUTHORS AND AUTHORSHIP 

By WILLIAM SHEPARD. 
i6mo, extra cloth, gilt top, $1.25. 

The first volume of a series entitled, and describing " The Literary Life." 
• treats of the trials, tribulations, and advantages of authorship ; discusses 
le relations of writers, editors, and publishers, the reason for the acceptance 
r rejection of mss., the conditions of success, etc. ; and gives statistics of the 
lies of popular books, of the prices paid for literary labor, and of fortunes 
on by the pen. To this are added anecdotes of famous works that were 
ther rejected by publishers or had a long struggle against the indifference 
■ the public, with other ana of literaiy interest,— the whole illustrated by 
)pious selections from the writings of successful men of letters. 
" It possesses the first requisite of success, in being eminently readable ; and the 
icond, in treating of a fertile theme in a fresh way. Those ^yho contemplate su cide 
the form of making literature a profession cannot help receiving a caution-at least 
■direcUon-from the earnest thought and well-considered words Mr. Shepard brings 
bear upon tl°e subject. Those who think better of their rash purpose and all read- 
?s wUl be an used by the quiet humor that pervades the whole book. The compiler 
weighs wilh impartial judgment the chances of literary success and failure ; instances 
na fy v^iablTwritingi that brought the author neither fame nor money ; tells of the 
rarvin- rewards of iTterature, of the honors won, of the pecuniary profits, of the fa- 
m us twenly thousand pound 'check which the Longmans paid Macaulay on account 
-■ -he copyright for \(^^Hhtory of England, and.of the poem ^^liich brought the poet 
> line The volume contains much curious information about Rejected MSS., 
•Vraf; Heroes," " Successful Books," and " Literary Society " ; offers discrimma- 
^advlce upon '' Literature as a Staff" and " Literature as a Crutch' -illustrates 
■rSenmySide of Letters " and " The Consolations cf Literature "with many re- 
iunsoffact- and, in short, takes the reader beliind the scenes ata dozen different 
.nts of experience. A successful journalist, a disappointed magazinist, and an editor 
chleUs h' s sepaS e story. If the price of a book were to be the criterion of its value 
,d intere? , th^fbook, A Ithors and A uthorship, should sell for a good deal more than 
.25. And they who buy it will be pretty sure to ay aside a second $^;25 to procure 
» Pen Picticres 0/ Modern Authors which is to {o\\o^^■ .'-Boston Literary U orld. 
r This is an exceedingly entertaining book, and if the other numbers of the series 
e as eood they will readily commend themselves to the consideration of a large cir- 
b of readerTVndcr the heads of "The Literary Life," - The Chances of Litera- 
te " "Concernino- Rejected MSS.," '' The Rewards of Literature," - Y irst Appear- 
Tce in S!"- Some Successful' Books," " The Seamy Side of LetU^rs," and so 
rth, the compiler has collected from a great variety of sources an assortment Oi odds 
,d ends about authors and authorship which will let in a good deal of daylight on the 
Jrsonal and professional conditions of \yl<^^\MX^r- Philadelphia Evening fclespaph. 
^' A deli'-htful little book ; brirht, gossipy, and instructive. It quotes from a host of 
aiithors and givVs their vie^l'S on the variou's aspects ot' the literary life It ispersona^ 
without being at all inquisitive, and is thoroughly entertaining throughout. -Hart- 
/crd Courant. 

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